...essentially jobless, there is time to blog at last! Apologies to all for being absent from commenting on yours, or even neglecting to reply to your comments on mine. Now, in theory, my life will become suddenly awash with the luxury of time. I just hope it doesn't escape me as if running off sun-baked soil.

Um... What to blog about ? Er...

Hmm...

Maybe I should try and get a job.

...the council offices :

"You mad-'ead... You don't have to fill in that your nationality is British. They'll know that from the bit you filled in saying you weren't an illegal immigrant."

People. There is nothing we can do to help them.

...being in the winter of my twenties is that I am feeling the need for comfort that much more.

I am off to a festival this weekend, and have decided to hitch. This is partly because my car doesn't reverse anymore (a subideal characteristic for a car, I find); and partly because I enjoy hitch-hiking. The last time I went hitching, I got picked up by a bloke whose son was dressed as a pirate. Aaaaarrrrr! The kid can't have been older than five, or six tops - but imparted an encyclopaedic knowledge of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. This was yesterday. It has inspired me to hitch more.

The problem is that, if I chose this way to travel, I have to travel light. And, now that I am pushing thhhh.. thhh... thrrrr... the decade after twenty, I like stuff to be soft, padded and welcoming. I want to take a camping chair, an inflatable bed, a quilt, and four pillows. And I fear there may not be enough room left for my cuddly Eeyore vat of cider.

My new housemate advised that I should go for the option of more pain. Like sleep in a hedge. But what if I managed to bring back a lovely young lady to my tent ?

Ah - who am I kidding ?

...day of work. I was trying to think of one last news story for the afternoon. But instead, I've decided to make one up. What should I do ? So far my choices are :

• Man chased by duck
• Girl gets three wishes from enchanted cowrie shell
• Treasure chest / dinosaur bones found on local beach
• Sasquatch spotted in local hills 
• Local man finds diamond in cockle shell 
• Lost city of Atlantis discovered in local estuary

Which of these should I write ? Or any other suggestions ?

...a lovely young lady back to my tent at the festival, so no surprises there. The festival itself, however, was turboace. It was free, and the whole arena was basically in only two fields. The compact size meant that you could walk from one side of proceedings to the other in about two minutes. So you could squish in the optimum amount of banditude.

I am almost a little embarrassed to admit that my favourite band were a bunch of death metal young'uns. They were TIGHT! They were FURIOUS! GRAAAAUUUGGGHHHH! They made being Engorged by Dark Forces seem like fun.

This regression to my teens hopefully made up for the fact I totally middle-aged out at the end of the evening. I went to bed before midnight. Ssshhhh... Although, in my defence, I had been drinking cider all afternoon, and it was a sweltering hot day. Plus, I set my alarm for later that night, so I could re-engage in the funtasticness. It's just that I slept through it. Next year, I shall be taking my tartan-coated dog Baxter up to a cottage in the Lake District for a weekend of reading. And I'm sure I'll find that exhausting. Bah.

...Busty Farm Girl on Sunday, with two of her very toothsome friends (both spoken for, regrettably). This was in part to spend the afternoon by the seaside; but also to barter with the owners of a local hotel, where she is to have her 30th birthday gathering. I say 'hotel'. It is a creepy, allegedly haunted, deeply foreboding building atop the hill overlooking my village. She is planning a murder mystery evening. And - considering the array of medieval weapons pinned very insecurely to the walls - it would surprise me not if the evening were to include a bona fide murder.

Busty Farm Girl's issue was that she had a group of twenty, and the owners were demanding £15 a head up-front for a buffet. Now, I'm not sure wot inhabitants of The Ants' Nest would pay per head for a buffet; but round this neck of the woods, for that you would expect scallops sautéd in platinum, and vol-au-vents containing genuine manna.

The regular front-of-house woman began to falter when asked if we could have a cut-down buffet, so called for reinforcement. Her wizened old crone of a mother - who must have been 180 years old if she was a day - was brought out to fight her campaign. And, despite her diminutive and frail appearance, she was Italian battleaxery of the highest order.

Her darkly hilarious opening gambit was an incredibly protracted apology for wielding a glass of water, explaining that she had suffered from throat cancer, and - after countless bouts of radiotherapy - couldn't talk too much, or her throat would dry up. This explanation took over ten minutes.

As one cannot argue with a 180-year-old throat cancer sufferer, we nodded in bemused agreement at her ludicrous arguments as to why they could not drop beneath £15 a head. She claimed that - as there were no wholesalers in the county - she would have to shop at supermarkets, which would bump up the price from the outset. 'No wholesalers other than the Bookers not five miles away ?' I was tempted to ask, but I had to let it slide. I'm also not sure where she plucked the following nugget from : "Well, you have seen for yourselves how the price of everything has risen dramatically over the last three weeks alone." If she had argued that she could hire no-one but Jesus himself to make the sandwiches, we would have felt compelled to concede.

The buffet has since been knocked on the head, as The Ship Of Fools have made us a far better offer. But the murder mystery is still to go ahead at the Hostelry Of Horror. The two girls we went with needed to go to the toilet whilst we were there, but each refused to go alone. They also resolved to stay awake all night on birthday eve, and not take the bed nearest the door. It promises to be an evening of cold chills. My fingers are crossed for Blog Gold.

...getting married tomorrow. So I sent him a text last night, which read :

Tomorrow is your last day of being a batchelor, fucknut! X

His response :

The rest of your life is being a fucknut. Fucknut.

Bang to rights, it would appear.

...night :

Nooma : There are worse things than being doomed.
Lemonsquash : Yeah.
[Pause]
Lemonsquash : Er... Like wot ?
Nooma : ...

...engaged!

Or am I ? I don't really know. Maybe you can help me.

My brother got married on Monday (this warrants a longer entry - keep your peels eyed). This pleased me. So I texted my ex-girlfriend who I've not seen in two years to tell her. I told her that it wasn't to a long-term girlfriend that she had met and I hadn't been especially fond of; but that he was married to a nice one instead.

My ex's response surprised me a little :
Good for him! Was it a good party? Two of my very good friends are getting married soon. Is maid of honour the one who has to organize and take care of everything? Well what ever the right word is, i am that. I'm a bit tired of weddings at the moment. Unless it's my own. Do you think we should get married? I think i asked you once before and you said no. Have you changed your mind yet?

Lawks. Did I really turn down a proposal from my lovely ex ? I responded :
I don't think I would have said no! If so, I was a fool.

Which isn't *exactly* a yes. But it is certainly far further from a no. I don't know how seriously to take it, as - although my lovely ex lives over a thousand miles away - she is just about nuts enough to mean it.

So - am I engaged ? And is it weird not to know ?

...heart that I had to call the Sweet Ecologist, and politely decline her offer of a weekend ticket for Reading. I have arranged to go to Hamsterjam with Busty Farm Girl on Monday, and her 30th birthday immediately follows. I was all up for accepting the ticket, until my squash partner reasoned thus :

Squash Partner : So, starting Friday, you would have festivals and drugs and whores and parties constantly until the following Saturday.
Squash : Yes.
Squash Partner : And this will cost money.
Squash : That's right.
Squash Partner : Ok, so let's make a conservative estimate of £80 a day, not including festival tickets.
Squash : Um... That seems fair.
Squash Partner : Right, we're talking £640. How much do you have ?
Squash : Er... None.
Squash Partner : I think we know the answer really, don't we ?

I cannot tell you how disappointed I am. I was happier when I thought I just couldn't get my hands on any tickets. So now I'm going to torture myself by having another look at the line-up...

Primal Scream... Fall Out Boy... The Subways... Yeah Yeah Yeahs... Panic! At The Disco... Clap Your Hands Say Yeah... SLAYER!

*Sobs piteously*

...Farm Girl allows the veneer of tolerance that she has of me to drop. She's had around 13 years to develop this mask, but - to be fair - I don't think I'm always the easiest person to be friends with :

Lemonsquash (concluding a long monologue concerning all of his woes, of which there are many) : So, that's all the news that's fit to print.
Busty Farm Girl : Good.
LS : I haven't even began to touch on the stuff that's unfit to print.
BFG : Oh dear god. Save it for the plane.
LS : I'm glad about the recent crackdown on wot you're allowed to take on board a plane. You're going to find it pretty difficult to kill me.
BFG : You think ?
LS : Yup.
BFG : Let's see... What can you still take ? Prescription medication, and glasses. Oh, believe me - that'll be enough.

...drinking game last night, involving picking up a card from a pack, which would have a rule ascribed to it. For example, draw a seven, all females drink. You know the sort of thing. If you drew an ace, you got to make up a new rule. I was very smug after dreaming up the rule that I got to choose which rule was applied whatever card was drawn by whoever. It basically meant I got to control the whole game.

I am less smug today. I have a belly full of warm sick, and am no good to man nor beast. The rule I should have made up was 'I don't have to drink any more - forfeit or otherwise'.

I also have an egg on my head, after klunking myself with my own board whilst smurfing yesterday. Immediately after doing this, I had this weird sensation like my brain was peeling away from the inside of my skull. Ick.

Would anybody like to come over and comfort me ?

...not :

• feed your bonsai diet lemonade
• ever say "Nah, just give me the cheque when you see me next"
• leave your flip-flops below the high-tide mark
• allow yourself to be filmed snoring
• pursue romantic liaisons with anybody
• pass go
• collect £200

What would you advise not to do ?

...introduce Lanky Afro Rig-Worker, who is a good friend of Surf-Film-Maker Chap's. He is shameless in his (usually futile) efforts to score with women, and subscribes wholeheartedly to the 'any hole's a goal' mentality. In short, he is a hero for our times.

I had intended to stay in last night with a bottle of wine and a film; but Surf-Film-Maker Chap informed me that Lanky Afro Rig-Worker was visiting, so we should go into town for a kebab and a fight.

We sat at a table in the pub. A fairly foxy barmaid walked past collecting glasses, and Lanky Afro Rig-Worker said to her "You're that girl from out in the street, aren't you ?" followed by a warm laugh. She looked at him like he was nuts, and walked off. I had assumed that they had shared some moment earlier. Maybe she had dropped something, and he had picked it up for her. But no - he had spotted her from a car walking down the street. It struck me that the warm laugh could have been interpreted as slightly sinister. A curious strategy. Sadly I missed the conversation later when he tried to explain to her that he wasn't a stalker or a freak - merely that he had seen her, and she looked lovely. Surf-Film-Maker Chap assured me that this was gold, and equally as unsuccessful as his opening gambit.

He managed to persuade me to go to the shittest club in town with him. I went there once when I first moved to the area two years ago, and vowed never to return. He said that he would pay my entrance, and that I only had to stay for one drink. By then he would presumably be working his magic.

I got a taster of that magic on the way to the club. As we walked down the street, he approached two girls sitting in a shop doorway. One was crying. Not wishing to fetter his performance by judging his audience, he dived right on in :
Lanky Afro Rig-Worker : Are you girls going to [shittest club in town] ?
Girls [in unison] : No.
Lanky Afro Rig-Worker : Why the fuck not ?

It was worth going out last night for that moment alone.