Back again. A combination of builders, pondering writing and a severe case of lazy bastard are all to blame. Anyway...

I arrived, as usual, at Victoria Station a shade before 7:30 this morning, headed for the tube, and stopped. At the same time my train arrived from Surrey another from Kent pulled in bringing with it another 500 commuters representing the best of Kentish close family relations.

Cue the best part of a thousand people charging for the stairs.

I stepped back spend five minutes watching hundreds of people disappear into a big fucking hole in the ground. In fact, pushing their way through other commuters to get into the this big fucking hole even faster and damn the consequences.

I don’t know, and don’t care, which hole spits these buggers back out again. All I knew was, at that moment, I couldn’t face the scrum. I like my job, but not quite enough on a Monday morning to chuck myself down a big fucking hole with a thousand people I don’t know.

Nobody told me that I would grow up to throw myself down a big fucking hole ten times a week in order to get somewhere that isn’t necessarily where I want to be.

It was raining, but I walked to work instead. I suggest you do the same this week. We're not evolved to deal with holes. If we were we'd be half-blind with great, spade-like hands for digging and belief that worms=food. Actually, maybe it's not such a bad life for the Kentish-folk.

“A long-term treaty with Moscow...securing support of an American invasion, seizure and terminal occupation of all oil-producing countries in the Middle East. This would not only solve the ‘energy crisis’ and end unemployment immediately by pressing all idle and able-bodied males into service for the invasion/occupation forces... but it would also crank up the economy to a war-time level and give Federal Government unlimited ‘emergency powers’.”

Hunter S. Thompson wrote that on New Years Day 1974. In 30 years America’s obsession with oil and use of economic FUD to stitch together an increasingly tattered social fabric hasn’t moved on. That’s long-term thinking. Me? It was my second birthday the day HST wrote that and the only thing approaching a personal obsession during that period is the vague feeling that my life hasn’t involved enough donuts. Either that, or writing about the US is making me think around food.

I had a moment of clarity this morning. Which is rare for someone who has learned to get up before 6:00am but is still mastering the art of hitting the sack before midnight. I won’t go into it now. Suffice to say that sometimes you just have to not give a shit and plough on with things regardless of cost and consequence. In fact, I’m starting to more like my old self than I have done in a long time.

I’ve also resolved to shave my head this week. The reasons for this are two fold:

1)      Having hair is a pain in the arse, especially with the aforementioned early start.

2)      People liken me to either a thug or Renton when I have a close crop ,which is probably why my fellow Borg commuters are less prone to bashing into me during the dash for the 18:10 to Horsham.

Writing’s progressing, but slowly. Personally, I don’t give a fig. I know I can knock out the best part of 10,000 words in a day with enough of a run-up and some quiet time. Although if I’m saying the same thing this time next week I’ll be in trouble.

As much as I like my job, I’m not prepared to crawl over the corpses of a hundred other commuters to get into work. Unlike most of the passengers on the Victoria line this morning.

With that out of the way there’s good news, bad news and very little rage today. Which either means I’m happy or haven’t had enough coffee. Either way, I’m hoping this continues.

My injured finger still has a knuckle like a fat ham and doesn’t bend. However, I’ve learned to type without relying on it and I’m back up to 60 wpm. Which is useful, as I managed to lose the first 1,000 words of my NaNoWriMo piece. It’s day six and I’m significantly behind schedule. I need around 10,000 words. I have, well, less than that.

The weekend was dominated by fireworks. The locals round my neck of the words are obsessed with them. I think they like loud noises and pretty lights. Either that or they think they drive away evil spirits. I mentioned the latter to a neighbour (a long-time Reigatonian) and he gave me a knowing look. I think I need to drop this piss-taking otherwise I could end up in a Wickerman kind of moment.

Anyway, it all passed off without incident. Close to 600 people crammed into the Parish school playground while a dad, acting as safety officer, told everyone to crush up closer to the fireworks so more people could squeeze in. Had they been present, the local fire brigade might have had some thoughts on this. Or thrown a fit. As it was, the fun combination of dads, mulled wine and explosives ensured plenty of fun was had.

Meanwhile, my next door neighbour went on a mission to singlehandedly recreate the bombardment of Iwo Jima – letting off a continuous stream of fireworks for over an hour. On his own. Still, it entertained the local chavs whose house back onto his garden. They blew their fireworks in under five minutes but did provide one memorable moment when I caught two of them peering closely at a mortar wondering where you lit it with nothing more than the light of the B&H Silvers hanging out of their mouths to guide them.