In my twenties I could operate without days off and still pretty much function, even if I had been out drinking the night before. But now without time to recharge the batteries, or to be more accurate sitting in a dark room doing nothing, my brain turns to mush. So I am finding myself turning up late for stuff, or going to the wrong place entirely. This afternoon I was off for a meeting about a sitcom script I am helping out with and was not only half an hour late, but also got off at entirely the wrong tube stop and was up at street level before I realised my mistake. I made it eventually and managed to make a proper contribution to the discussion, but I'd prefer it if my brain and body worked like they used to.
After the meeting I returned home via the Westfield Centre, where either a gun massacre was taking place or some pop star was making an appearance as the place was filled with high-pitched screams. I haven't seen anything about thousands of people dying, so assume it was the latter.
I had resolved to give up chocolate this week as I've been chubbing up something awful and watching the intro clip to me on Buzzcocks on Tuesday I saw how much my weight has fluctuated over the last two years and I prefer the thinner me from Edinburgh and Beyond to the chubby Hitler and the now even chubbier Charlie Boorman. But alas Cadburys spies must have got wind of my scheme and sent out saboteurs to prevent this revenue losing disaster and some young women were handing out Flakes for free outside Boots. I managed to stay strong when I passed them the first time, but on the way back I figured that one Flake couldn't hurt, especially as it is only one day since I last had chocolate. I could start anew tomorrow.
These drug dealers know what they are doing.
I decided to spend the night in watching DVDs and playing video games and popped into Game to see if there was anything new I might enjoy. I ended up buying both Countdown for the DS and Call Of Duty Modern Warfare for the Wii. I wonder if anyone else in the world has bought both those games at once for themselves. You would imagine the Venn diagram of people who liked playing an old person's word game and people who wanted to shoot up innocent civilians at an airport would have no overlap. But I am the overlap. Both an old man and a stupid child in one body. It pretty much sums me up.
The young man on the check out, saw the Call of Duty game and said to me "Oh, man, you're not getting this for the Wii are you? You're really missing out on loads of stuff if you don't get this for the X Box. I feel sorry for anyone playing this on the Wii. You're missing out."
Which I would argue wasn't the best sales technique.
"I don't have an X Box though," I told him, "And I don't think I can justify buying a new games system for just one game," even though I am being somewhat profligate at the moment as you may have noticed. I might get us out of this recession on my own with the amount of unnecessary leisure based items I've been buying.
"Oh well, it's still good," he told me with little commitment. So I took the chance, feeling like I was missing out on some wonderful adventure nonetheless.
I got home and played Countdown anyway, which is probably the game I will get more out of and watched Battlestar Galactica and later some more "The Wire". I am working my way slowly through these. If only I had no work I could be having the time of my life watching American TV and acting like some combination of Richard Whiteley and Andy McNab.
I am 42 years old.
