There are men on my landing doing something that - as the MAN of the house - I should be doing.

They are papering the walls with, well, wall paper while I 'work' in my office, trying to avoid any unnecesary chit chat they might want to have. This is because whenever work MEN come to my house, they seem to think it is fine to point their fingers at me and snigger.

For example, this morning I was woken up at 8am by the arrival of the aofrementioned MEN of WORK. My wife - who is foxy - was opening the front door to let them in.

"Hello, I'm Jo... come in, do you want a cup of tea?"

"That'd be nice, love! We'll just get the stuff in from the van."

"Oooh. Be a bit quiet when you get upstairs, my husband's still in bed."

"Bed?"

"Bed."

"It's all right for some."

"He's got you running round doing all the work, has he?"

"Yes, he has! I have to get up every morning, take our daughter out to school..."

"I wouldn't put up with that, pretty woman like you!"

So, I got out of bed and stood on the landing. This was a mistake because in my ire I had forgotten to check I was avec boxer shorts or other suitable genital shrouding clothing. Still, I had just woken up, if you know what I mean, so there was no need to feel too ashamed.

"GOOD MORNING NOISY WORKMEN! I AM THE FAT, LAZY GIT WHO WAS WORKING UNTIL 3am THIS MORNING TO PAY YOU TO COME AND DO THE JOB IN MY HOUSE THAT I CAN'T DO BECAUSE I HAVE TO WORK UNTIL 3am IN THE MORNING, SOME MORNINGS."

"Morning, mate. Keep your hair on. Your knob's hanging out."

As starts to the day go; it was a bad one.

After I had got dressed in the bathroom, slipping around in little puddles of water because I still haven't fixed the shower curtain that thinks it's a door, and wishing to high heaven that I had had a poo before the workmen turned up [they're working right outside the bathroom door and it was veggie chilli on the menu last night], I walked to Faulkener St, trying to look as business-like as I could, doubled over with constipation, sporting badly edited sideburns and a wet patch on the arse of my jeans from the previously mentioned puddles on the bathroom floor.

I posted the first three chapters of my 'novel' to an eminent agent in London. praying to the God above that I have never really believed in, until circumstance necessitates the belief in an omniscient being who can shape fate in my favour, that this eminent agent doesn't do a 'google' on my name, coming across such internet gems as my theoretical wanking exercise regime and the story of the last Telfords Christmas 'do' but one.

I can't imagine that Philip Pullman waxes lyrical about his privations on the internet. In fact, I know he doesn't. His website is a model of decorum, fine thought and inspiration. In fact, if you go to his website right now his most recent 'blog' is all about how difficult he finds it to 'blog'... he goes on to say, "but most of the time I'd rather read than write, and rather listen than talk..." - if these are the qualifications prerequisite to being a very good writer, I need to start making those phone calls about Accountancy courses now.

I have a friend called... well, I'll call her Jenny to protect Sally's identity. In her past, she would go out and spin webs of lies out of threads made of alcohol and speed and blow and a bit more alcohol, and a few mushies thrown in for good measure, if it was the right time of year.

The first time I met her she told me she wrote for Guitarist magazine, and it's a measure of my own inebriation at the time that I believed her.

The thing about Sally, I mean, Jenny, was that the next morning, contrite and hungover on shame, she would try and undo the web that she had woven the night before. She would phone the numbers that she had scrawled on the fag packets and scraps of beermat in her coat pockets and say things like,

"Hello, it's Sally... I'm the girl you might have been speaking to last night... I might not even have called myself Sally... it's all a bit embarrassing, really... anyway, don't believe anything I said to you last night. I tend to take a few flights of fancy when I'm drunk."

"Erm... no, I'm sorry, that was a lie too. Sorry to have raised your hopes. I'm sure that someone with a healthy kidney who isn't an inveterate liar will come along soon..."

This act of wiping the slate clean is so much easier in the real world. Most of us haven't gone to the lengths that Jenny, I mean, Sally, has. Wiping a digital slate clean is much harder, if not impossible.

The internet stores things, and it doesn't listen however hard and loud you plead with it.

Maybe I will have to publish the book under a pseudonym.

That would be fun.

I will call myself Jenny Erm Sally.

The MEN are still here.

I have sworn loudly at my music software for deleting a playlist I hadn't finished with,

"Fucking twat of a piece of shit!" I said, as gruffly, and as if I had just hit my thumb with a hammer, as possible.

I don't think they were impressed, though.

"What do you do for a living then, mate?"

"I'm a radio presenter."

"Ooooh! Hear that, Terry? He's a radio presenter. Which station? Marcher? Deva 106?"

"No. BBC Radio Wales."

"????"

"It's a radio station. In Wales."

"I never listen to it. Can't understand a bloody word of it."

" < sigh > "

"When are you going to get a proper job, then?"

Too many battles. Not enough time, or energy, to fight them all.

Hence the death of the forum.

Hence the death of half of my Friday nights in Telfords.

Hence the lack of recent blogs.

My original intention with this blog was to ask what any DJ's reading this do to cope with annoying punters who badger them for requests. God knows, after 10years of DJ'ing every Friday night I should have some kind of a strategy in place, but I haven't.

I want to know what you do.

Please share.

I'm going now. I have to make a cup of tea for myself and two MEN who possibly think I'm gay because I haven't got callouses on my hands and a pair of boots with steel toe-caps in 'em.

I hope you're well! Back to the top of the page...