January recap
So yeah, it's been a while.
Christmas was suitably relaxing, despite narrowly avoiding fog chaos flying down - there's very little to do down in Devon, but I was well fed and refreshed.
I outdid myself on the flight back. As I was checking in, the woman at the desk was telling her colleague that she hadn't wanted to say anything, but the guy she'd just served was Marc Almond.
Quick as a writer making a cliched reference to a flash, I piped up "I hope you didn't ask him if he was carrying any banned fluids."
This witty interjection earned me a wry knowing grin as I handed over my passport.
Then a very dirty look. As, thanks to the effects of a foil wrapper and static electricity, she handed back the unused condom which I'd just mistakenly palmed off to her.
New Year was more hecticly entertaining, involving a "black and white ball". Except nobody else seemed to have read the event name and the implied dress code. So among a crowd mainly in jeans and casual shirts, and four men in dark suits, I was clad like so:
The return to work has been a shock to the system, though I'm largely sticking to a resolution to do a certain number of hours work each day, just like a real job. I'm doing the odd piece here and there for PowerSlam and also picking up some press release work after marketing myself some more, particularly to voluntary groups/charities without full-time PR staff. For anyone who doesn't know, www.johnlisterwriting.com is my professional home.
And the start of 2007 was capped off by what a builder described as "a fucking disaster" in which the mains water pipe for our street burst underneath our kitchen at some point. We don't know when as the pipe was, ludicrously, encased in three feet of concrete, so the first we knew was when the wate had forced it's way through the concrete, through two brick walls, and was spraying straight under our living room (which is a suspended floor above a hollow surface) and sounded like a 24 hour waterfall. The resulting repairs included our kitchen floor being removed chunk by chunk with a chisel before being replaced completely, the old toilet being removed and a new one fitted, the boiler being servived to cope with the changes in water pressure, and our hallway floor being replaced. The only upside was that I am home during the day, and we rent rather than having to pay for repairs.
I finally got round to fulfilling a childhood dream and got myself a four-poster bed (with springless memory foam mattress). As I never had a car, I missed the whole customisation deal that men do, so I think this is my surrogate - it now has curtains, a canopy and even internal lighting with a range of flashing effects. I've also stuck a TV at the end (so you just pull the curtain back to reveal the screen, cinema style), and put in a wireless video sender so I can watch and control Sky from upstairs. In the event that I ever figure out wireless internet, I will probably never get up again.
Elsewhere, I've done the whole dating scene thing quite intensely over the last couple of months, which has meant a lot of great nights out, the odd fantastic night in, and a couple of lousy experiences (including meeting a woman who liked The Deer Hunter, Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back (but not Return of the Jedi) and the Basque region, but violently disliked everything else in the entire world, from separate hot and cold taps through Chinese hygiene to the concept of Tai Chi teachers who charge by the class). If nothing else, it's been a great confidence boost to realise I can feel attractive and hold an intelligent conversation with a variety of women. But as much fun as it's been, I'm pleased to say that (while taking things slowly) I'm now officially off the market.
Sorry, ladies.
Christmas was suitably relaxing, despite narrowly avoiding fog chaos flying down - there's very little to do down in Devon, but I was well fed and refreshed.
I outdid myself on the flight back. As I was checking in, the woman at the desk was telling her colleague that she hadn't wanted to say anything, but the guy she'd just served was Marc Almond.
Quick as a writer making a cliched reference to a flash, I piped up "I hope you didn't ask him if he was carrying any banned fluids."
This witty interjection earned me a wry knowing grin as I handed over my passport.
Then a very dirty look. As, thanks to the effects of a foil wrapper and static electricity, she handed back the unused condom which I'd just mistakenly palmed off to her.
New Year was more hecticly entertaining, involving a "black and white ball". Except nobody else seemed to have read the event name and the implied dress code. So among a crowd mainly in jeans and casual shirts, and four men in dark suits, I was clad like so:
The return to work has been a shock to the system, though I'm largely sticking to a resolution to do a certain number of hours work each day, just like a real job. I'm doing the odd piece here and there for PowerSlam and also picking up some press release work after marketing myself some more, particularly to voluntary groups/charities without full-time PR staff. For anyone who doesn't know, www.johnlisterwriting.com is my professional home.
And the start of 2007 was capped off by what a builder described as "a fucking disaster" in which the mains water pipe for our street burst underneath our kitchen at some point. We don't know when as the pipe was, ludicrously, encased in three feet of concrete, so the first we knew was when the wate had forced it's way through the concrete, through two brick walls, and was spraying straight under our living room (which is a suspended floor above a hollow surface) and sounded like a 24 hour waterfall. The resulting repairs included our kitchen floor being removed chunk by chunk with a chisel before being replaced completely, the old toilet being removed and a new one fitted, the boiler being servived to cope with the changes in water pressure, and our hallway floor being replaced. The only upside was that I am home during the day, and we rent rather than having to pay for repairs.
I finally got round to fulfilling a childhood dream and got myself a four-poster bed (with springless memory foam mattress). As I never had a car, I missed the whole customisation deal that men do, so I think this is my surrogate - it now has curtains, a canopy and even internal lighting with a range of flashing effects. I've also stuck a TV at the end (so you just pull the curtain back to reveal the screen, cinema style), and put in a wireless video sender so I can watch and control Sky from upstairs. In the event that I ever figure out wireless internet, I will probably never get up again.
Elsewhere, I've done the whole dating scene thing quite intensely over the last couple of months, which has meant a lot of great nights out, the odd fantastic night in, and a couple of lousy experiences (including meeting a woman who liked The Deer Hunter, Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back (but not Return of the Jedi) and the Basque region, but violently disliked everything else in the entire world, from separate hot and cold taps through Chinese hygiene to the concept of Tai Chi teachers who charge by the class). If nothing else, it's been a great confidence boost to realise I can feel attractive and hold an intelligent conversation with a variety of women. But as much fun as it's been, I'm pleased to say that (while taking things slowly) I'm now officially off the market.
Sorry, ladies.