Thursday's Paul has far to go...

I've got no cohesion in my thought process. My mind is flitting from subject to subject like a hummingbird which is making it very dificult to write anything of sense.

So perhaps this post should be like a mini-mix. Snippets of what's going on up there spewed out for your delight. I'm tired, I was out last night with a great guy I used to work with and we sank many Guinesses (guiness? like sheep and sheep?, guinai? surely not?). We spoke of many things; parenthood, work, football, oysters.

By God I love tea, it's got to be the very best of everything, my cup is now pitched at exactly the right temperature and the milk tea ratio is bang on.

Oh, an email, and some actual work to do.

What does everyone want for christmas? Isn't life easier now I've adopted Wife's families present method, it's simple and it ensure's enjoyment at the end of the process, "what do you want?" is all it takes, so much easier than the sneaky remembered hints dropped in June. I can barely remember last week.

Why on earth am I listening to this shouty music? It's not bad actually, and it's keeping me slighty focussed.

Crikey what a flap, thank god that's over.

So you see this is what I'm faced with when attempting to be creative with a hangover, note to self: less booze during the week.

Ta ra.

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Time, time, time, see what's become of me...

Time’s stock has increased, and it’s not just the extra half hour’s work at the end of the day or the extra 2 hours commute out of each 24 pushing up the price.

The time I now have to myself each week is far more valuable, and not necessarily in a good way as I think this has all come about by way of an attitude shift.

I’ve a feeling I’m starting to think that my time is precious which, in itself, isn’t particularly a bad thing. All time in essence is precious, and its singular nature makes sure of that for like a flawless clear diamond is worth more than it’s cracked yellowing cousins because of its rarity, every second of every day is as unique as a snowflake. Once it’s happened it can never be changed or repeated, which, as a digression, makes it at the same time completely valueless.

So, as I stand, second after second, cramped in the corner of a tube door-well, the subject of slight olfactory abuse thanks to my elderly neighbour, I find myself feeling a little irritated.

As I’ve learnt before no time can be wasted if the subject can embrace the activity within, it’s just that my long meta-physical arms are flinching slightly at the prospect of grasping these moments to my meta-physical bosom (yes, it is a bosom).

What has happened then within me to cause embracorial hesitation?

I think I’ve lost some sense of my time being my own, more parts of the day feel enforced.

The 6:30 start, if I have the good grace to have a bath, is caused by leaving the house at 7:20 to make my train at 7:35, to get the tube at 7:53, to be at work for 8:30, to sit until 6pm tapping at a keyboard to make someone else money, from where I troll home to grab 3 or 4 hours for myself.

Day’s like this have created a bitter belligerence to tar those sweet evening hours, and all I manage to do is buttock-cling angrily to the sofa and waste my brain away with a regular dose of jungle bound celebrities. This torpor is state I don’t even seem to enjoy; more feel an insistence to participate in as a “deserved” respite from the hardship of the working day.

I think the time has come to reclaim my evenings and switch off the television set and do something less boring instead (thank you the 80’s).

Yes, starting tonight, evenings are a time of action, of dynamics and of happy ownership.

Thanks right my friends, tonight I grab 7 until 10 by the scruff of it’s neck and shake it all the way to the supermarket, because let’s be honest, what’s “I’m a celeb” without a post prandial bit of cake?

Shopping...

Vanity is a cruel mistress. She can bring you to your knees with a glance or raise you up to the angels with the right whispers. Unfortunately for me, I’ve just been slammed with the former, and at the temple of vanity itself, a clothes shop.

I used to love clothes shopping, a gentle stroll about town, slipping on some natty new trousers or a fancy shirt, to buy or not to buy? Oh, who am I kidding, I look great, of course I’ll buy it.

Now it’s nothing more than a nice walk ruined, a phrase I think some people have appropriated to describe golf. Probably the same people who enjoy shopping.

As I trudge my through racks of clothes, most of which would and do look great on a manikin or those lucky few with the physique of one, I can feel myself studiously ignoring the tug at the waistband of my already comfy and worn in old jeans and fingering trouser sizes that fit me before I got married.

As an aside, there is some truth in the adage that once you’re married you put on weight, although it’s not, as some bitter long-timers might say, because you don’t have to try any more.

It’s because the newly wedded status means you’re out drinking and eating with the people you didn’t have enough time for on the day, or you love each so much that a massive takeaway and the sofa together are your idea of heaven.

As with anything that requires practice, this gluttonous lifestyle slowly becomes the norm and I can’t now think of a weekend in the last 4 years that didn’t revolve around eating, with friends or at home.

I’m definitely not complaining about it, I love it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

What I would change however is my outdated view of myself and the every time surprise at realising I’m a bit fatter than I thought.

It’s this surprise then that strikes a crushing blow when the 2 pairs of same waisted trousers I’ve picked up, 2 because I’m not 100% on my leg length, are un-buttonable.

My first clue should probably have been that of the 2 leg lengths, both were too short, and if I can’t even get that right, how could I possibly think the more sensitive, rounder middle bit will be right?

Also, as it turns out, one can’t put stuff in ones trouser pockets when one is wearing anything other than jeans, a rule I absolutely refuse to honour as what on Gods blue planet are they for, if not for putting things in?

This rule however, appears to be so painfully obvious to Wife that my already cracked and weeping self-image receives the hammer blow of idiocy and I storm out of the changing room dropping great hunks of dignity behind me, cursing this stupid new job and their dress policy.

Thankfully, my rather aimless thumping about led me to a much more acceptable pair of corduroy jeans, so swallowing my pride I dropped slightly lower in the pile and bought some that actually fit me (and have the word “stretch” on them, just in case).

myTube - why not?

As is fairly common, I was thinking of how I could easily make alot of money yesterday, and I came up with something that I'm sure is as original as potatoes. I call it MyTube.

MyTube is mainly for londoners, although It does have applications globally, if you've got a subway in your city or some other sort of underground network including but not exclusive to, cave systems or those tunnels that the Vietnamese freedom fighters/terrorists (thought I'd cover both bases there) lived in during the conflict.

Nominally, It's a melange between mySpace and youTube, which is as good a place to start as any.

All you need to do is take a photo of the train you usually take to work, perhaps supplement this with a sneaky snap or 2 of the regulars you look at with a little less bile than anyone else, write a synopsis of your journey; the busy spots, that time you had one of the rare drivers that think they're funny, something like that, and upload the lot to a webpage.

Then as the community builds you can become "friends", and I think the inverted commas are well placed, with the other people who get on your train. Imagine the pleasure of looking surrepticiously around and wondering if that rather bland looking man is DistrictLineDave, or that unfeasably ugly woman over there is TheFarringdonFox?

You could even, if you find yourself online one night after a couple of shandies, private message (PM to the nerds) someone and try and talk to them with your voice the next morning.

Then you can get married and invite me to your wedding for coming up with the whole, dragging along behind the bandwagon, idea in the first place. I love a good wedding me, but make sure you've got beers on offer as well as the plonk your Dad and plucky Fiancee drove a van to Calias to buy.

Why then, am I not busily working some of my internet skills (chick's dig a guy with skills), on building this thing, can't be that hard can it?

I think it's simply that I can't be bothered, I spend my working hours creating web magic, and while I'm really enjoying this waffling, I'd rather be down the boozer playing darts of an evening.

So if you're inclined, please take MyTube and make it real, if it all works out as planned you could start charging for a dating service and become a gazillionaire, never mind your adSense income eh?

Just think though as you roll about uncomfortably on a bed of 50 pound notes that perhap's you should send an email to the lazy sod who couldn't be bothered, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Pride - In the name of love

I think it was the great Hannibal that said "I love it when a plan comes together", probably just before he cannibalised an elephant. Or something along those lines.

It's also what I'd be saying if I was the friend I was speaking to at lunchtime.

About 3 or 4 years ago there was a fashionable financial advisor among my friends, those who could afford him anyway, (that's 2 of them) who told them to start "buying to let" flats, for some reason particularly in the Reading area.

It was also around this time a few more of us embraced something called "The Landmark Forum", a weekend of tearing apart every notion you have about who you are and putting yourself back together filled with truth and self-belief. Not an easy process granted, but well worth every sobbing "I'm sorry and I love you".

So here are my friends, all pumped up on love and confidence with a financial advisor telling them to get, literally, millions on debt.

A recipe for disaster I hear you mutter with your shaking head. At least, looking back at it now, that's what my shaking head is muttering.

But no! this is not the case for, as I said, the plan has come together.

I remember many conversations with these shining lights of derring-do. Intoxicating they were, "you just taken some of the capital growth from the house your in, buy another one on an interest-only mortgage, and let the growth and rent on it pay for itself and give you a little cream on top".

The economics are so glaringly simple it's hard to understand why I didn't just chuck in my lot with them and watch the pounds mount, until I remember, now as with then, these people know what they're doing.

These guys have got Cambridge education and engineering degrees, and more importantly great, big balls of steel. I on the other hand, educational plaudits put aside, am more often than not blinded into stupidity by the smell of victory, as anyone who's almost lost to me at pool can testify (just pot the black... go on, get in the hole... oh, you bastard!).

Clearly, know what they're doing, they did. Spending like lunatics on 2 or 3 flats at a time, tapping furiously at spreadsheets and sitting tight through the next couple of years when any idiot could go to a bank with a tenner in their pocket and buy a terrace street in Hull.

Finally, now that the world's sane again, they can look at the empires they've created and smile.

Not the huge Cheshire Cat smile that says "Oh, you've probably just noticed how absolutely incredible I am" but a much more attractive eye smile, with a hint of upward movement at the corners.

This is the kind of smile that says, "I rather suspected that would work, but for a couple of moments there I did crap myself a little bit".

He's managed to sort it so that his missus can give up work for a bit, have time with the baby and give some real thought to what she wants to do next. Not only that, but when his contract runs out he;ll have bought himself a nice bit of time to do the same.

All of this, in the end, gives me a rather toothy grin of pride and a re-newed belief in having the courage of your convictions.

Here's to you fella, may your hare-brained scheme's long be fruitful.

Ok, so daily may be a misnomer...

I almost walked today, and what a whimper I would have gone with.

I’ve spend my last three working days trying to test the simplest piece of code on the variety of development environments available to me and finding their disparate natures a massive frustration, after all, writing the thing had taken me not more than 2 hours, which is a very small percentage of 3 days.

Add to this that my novelty factor has worn off for my mentor, I think I’m not much more than an annoying whine for him at the moment, and I feel like I would have been more useful to the company crawling around on all fours pretending to be a cat, looking for a scratch under the chin.

I was one step away from a George Galloway, unlike Gorgeous George however, I managed to keep my cool, slip my coat on with rage shaking hands and pop out to call Wife.

Thankfully she’s at home today, struck down with London flu, so she wasn’t too embroiled in her own work to give me enough time and sensible words to get me back in there.

Sometimes I can be such a drama queen, and it was only her zen-like insight reminding me to have a bit of perspective on my hissy fit that finally brought out the well earned laugh at self.

Thus steeled, I walked back in, took off my coat with as much dignity as I could muster and sat down among the wonderfully oblivious others.

Deep breath in hand, I dove back into it and bleated at Mentor, who, all credit to him, patiently told me to have some confidence and upload it for wider testing.

After all that, and a really tasty mars bar, I settled back into fumbling ignorantly about until the world took a turn for the better.

What, you may think, could possibly be this harbinger of glad tidings? (can harbingers bring gladness?) You will be surprised to hear it was a meeting.

Usually the merry domain of middle management and the scourge of developers everywhere, this one was shaping up to be not much different until Mentor was called away; on the face of it, leaving me high and dry.

Do we wait? Can he postpone? ‘fraid not on all counts so it’s time for me to step up to the plate, and what an extravagant step I used, I might as well have been leading the thing!

I had finally realized what was going on, it was like a could had lifted and in a sense it had.

With Mentor gone, I could get my balls out, I was the biggest technical brain in the room, I was the alpha dog again, and I loved it.

We developers should probably have a little sign that says “does not play well with others”.

Technical roles are more often than not filled by men who used to be the kind of boy that played with lega and had the patience to tape load “Revenge of the Mutant Camels” on their Amstrad Amiga.

This kind of nerdy testosterone breeds a rather unpleasant masculinity. We can’t compete physically so we become guileful and snide, a subtle one-upmanship develops along with an ever increasing irritating smugness in the stronger player.

All in all an out and out scrap is probably healthier but it’s also less acceptable in the workplace, so by realizing my part in creating my own tension I can now walk away with dignity.

I realize I’m fighting a losing battle against someone who knows more than me and is on his home ground, so I think I’ll shelf my pride and try to learn something, if only until Friday when he moves on and I’m back in the driving seat.

My first week in the office - Tuesday

Today I had my first real, “oh dear, what have I done?” moment, and it came as a result of what can only be described as a minor telling off, I felt like I was 12 again.

It’s obvious these two are connected only by pride and fear, but the strength of feeling surprised me.
I’d been introduced to the “rules of engagement” on day 1, i.e. when to get there and not leave before, who to whinge to about the lack of paperclips and finally what, or rather, what not to wear. This doesn’t mean a surprise visit from Trinny and Susannah.

Shirt and jacket (Jacket!?) or polo shirt for men and jeans allowed on Fridays. It’s not Friday is it?

So today I think I’ll wear my nice linen trousers and a polo shirt, clothes I usually reserve for a Saturday morning when I’m whacking a little ball with a metal stick, this I call my “smart” outfit, and if the snooty golf clubs of south west London don’t mind then surely they’re ok for work.

Settling in for the second round of clicking aimlessly at a machine and turning my brain into a sponge-like state just the right side of mad cows disease, the guvnor saunters over and reminds me that jeans are only for Fridays.

And there it was, my immediate reaction is to defend myself, “Do you think these are jeans?” spoken with hindsight in a fairly aggressive tone, cue blushes from the boss.

There is no more powerful emotion than embarrassment and it’s a cocktail only available to beings with higher cognitive reasoning. Take a dash of shock, mix it up with a large shot of humiliation, top off with anger and serve hot.

Usually as I’m burning my lips on a piping hot gulp, I get a second to have a look at myself, and try and pull back from the more unpleasant reaction as displayed to Boss.

In the run up to starting the job I had queries along the lines of “will you need to wear a suit?” to which I’ve boldly responded, “Any job that requires me to wear a suit, I can do without!”

It appears that I’ve been a liar. All that time at home, all that autonomy has left me with oversized balls it would seem. Who am I to go shouting about what I should or shouldn’t wear in someone else’s house? Especially since they’re paying me to be there.

Even by my own admission it’s time I got with the programme, and so I shall. Tomorrow morning in as good as I have, a shirt and the only pair of suit trousers that still fit me, hopefully by looking the part my fretful attitude will be replaced by feeling the part as well.

My first week in the office - Monday

This must be how someone coming out of a long-term coma feels, without of course, the atrophied limbs.

These people are talking, and I know it’s English, most of the time, but I’m having inexplicable trouble really grasping what they’re saying.

I think there’s more to my newfound stupidity that the culture shock of constant conversation, and while some of the Swedish accents are on the gluttonous side of thick, I don’t think that’s the problem either, the real issue is stepping into a conversation 5 years after it started.

Remember the feeling of trying to catch up after popping for a wee in the pub and returning, not to the merry chortles that follow the punch line, but to the air of anticipation that precedes it and which you can only be part of having understood the laborious build up?

Take that and multiply it by a hundred, then replace the levity with seriousness and your pretty much there.

I think, as times goes on, I’ll be able to piece things together and see the bigger picture. I’m rather hoping for a Poirot like moment, where I can mentally pace about the drawing room, twiddling my impeccable moustache and unravel this mystery with a Swiss watchmakers precision.

“So you see, it became very clear to Poirot that, while you worked for a complete different department, you would be the un-ignorably important person who adds to his workload without consideration for his boss”.

For the time being I’ll just have to go with the flow, gleaning clues here and there. Today’s clues revolved around learning some of the speak and forgetting as many names as possible.

As far as the lingo goes, I’m sure it’s the same in every workplace, the comfort of common understanding breeding linguistic laziness.

Thankfully I’m not talking about management speak, which in my mind would sound even more wonderfully ludicrous in a Swedish accent.

I’m talking about the other scourge of the business world, the acronym.

I imagine it was the military who invented them, not only to save the generals precious nanoseconds but also to give the less cerebrally endowed a chance to keep up with orders as they came in.

Unlike the military however, business has adopted a rather more ramshackle approach with acronyms growing (or rather shrinking) without anybody to marshal them to attention.

I remember the period, during the mid/late nineties when financial directors became Chief Financial Officers and the boss became the Chief Executive Officer, lengthy titles which of course demanded acronymic treatment.

This grand period of change created a well meaning monster it would seem and I’m sure that during it’s infancy the titular acronyms were very well held in check by virtue of their newness and the misplaced pride they created. Today, however, they are everywhere; not only as titles fitting names I’ve forgotten, but also as integral parts of day to day working life.

I can only hope my internal Poirot has his dictionary on him, and that we can keep up.

TTFN.

My last week at home - Friday

Well, what a start, after some leaving drinks last night that included a pint of “Black Velvet” half Guinness and half champagne, I was a little slow to rise.

In my defence though, what was there to rise for? I had carefully engineered it so that all I had to do is dismantle all my kit, computers and stuff, and drive it over to one of my colleagues houses, and in my early morning state, the later I got onto doing that the better.

By rather happy coincidence, the morning would be taken up with a couple of visitors, Mum would be making her last lunchtime visit, and a friend would be dropping something off for Wife.

Mum’s visits where reasonably regular as she worked close by and it was never beyond the realms of possibility that someone would drop by and deliver something or stop in for a cuppa, which leads me to thinking that my moving to an office job affects more than just me.

It may seem obtuse of me to have only realised this now, but to be honest these times of change are such a wonderful opportunity for introspection that my consciousness is only now raising it’s head above the parapet.

So while I’m certainly going to miss an hour a week to eat chips and sauce, (the chippy offers not only the classic “curry”, and it’s northerly cousin “gravy”, there’s also “sweet & sour” and “Thai green”) with Mum in the garden, I don’t think it’s too egotistical to think she’ll miss it too.

I have even, admittedly only once, babysat* for my godson during an unfortunate emergency at his mother’s work, a delightfully encouraging experience for an eager parent to be. Sadly for me and uselessly for them, an option now closed to his parents.

All of this without even considering my invaluable skills when it comes to waiting for deliveries and answering calls from people in India with an over-interest in my mobile phone bill or more locally feigning excitement at “winning” a new kitchen, again.

Looking at it now, the outreaching effects of my change in status are huge, from as close as my own mother to as far as the call centre industry of India.

Does this global revelation tug at my heartstrings? A little I suppose, but I think I’ll just be glad that on this last day, I’ve had the opportunity to spend a bit of time out of my day as a real example of what working from home can be all about.


* Note to linguists: is that even a real word? It just feels wrong, and in my head is too easy to add an h too.

My last week at home - Thursday

Peculiarly, as part of my last week at home, I’ve come up to town.

Every so often we home workers crawl out from under our rocks and meet up in London’s creative Soho to sit quietly and pretend we’re alone.

It’s an interesting example of what is probably the general perversity of human nature. I’ve been moaning about being lonely and having no-one to talk to and now I’ve got the chance I’m finding myself being, or at least appearing to be, busy so that I don’t have to engage in conversation.

What makes this particularly odd is that I’m not alone; the silence that pervades this place is really quite engulfing. There’s the gentle hum of laptops and a mumbled phone call every now and again, but even the others, the regular “people-meeters”, are as quiet as mice.

Is this simply an example of us wanting what we don’t have?

Here I am, having taken the not insignificant step of resigning and finding an office based job, staring at a screen, tight-lipped and not wanting to listen to the eruptions of banal banter that punctuate this silence.

It may have come from years of puffed-up internal monologue, but some people really are thick, or at least linguistically inept.

There used to be a man, well a recruitment agent to give him his official sub-species, sat within earshot of our little bundle of hot-desks, who talked very loudly and constantly referred to himself as “myself” and to the poor recipient of his verbal vomit as “yourself”.

It’s a simple thing, a foible really, but to me it became a sound so repellent as to make me move desk. It wasn’t so much the abuse of language that bothered me so, it was more his reasons for the affectation.

To my mind, he thought using such “lengthy” alternatives to the quicker and easier “me” and “you” made him sound intelligent.

What could be less intelligent that to misuse a tool you’ve been learning for almost all of your life?

There are probably two main things that set us apart from our closest Darwinian relatives; the use of tools and a complex language structure.

According to my televisual education there are tribes of apes that aren’t too far behind us. I bet none of them use an “ook” instead of an “ack” in a poor attempt to impress a prospective contact.

The other thing I found particularly galling was its laziness.

There are many ways to sully our wonderful language, a judicious use of archaic slang for example can often be intellectually stimulating as well as amusing.

The ibbly bibbly language used in the playground is, once you know the rules, innovative and clever. Even the “for shizzle, my nizzle” vernacular is constantly evolving.

As a taster of what’s to come I’ve found today’s remembered experience a little alarming, will I enter this new life of office work only to find my ears aflame with lazy, ugly language?

In some ways I would be sorely disappointed if this were the case, but in others I may rejoice in it’s nonsense as a grating sign of the happy proximity of other people.

My last week at home - Wednesday

Today I decided to make the very most of my last full day at home and have found myself doing sod all.

I’ve managed to comply with the steadily drying trickle of work requests as they come in, but beyond that, I’ve done pretty much nowt.

Now, as I wind myself up to go out and get a haircut I’m left with a rather disappointed feeling, is doing nothing making the most of it?

In all the time I’ve been working from home I’ve managed many wonderful feats, feats unavailable to the office worker.

I’ve started at 6:30 in the morning and taken an extra hour and a half at lunchtime for a bit of a shop, an opportunity that will be sorely missed this Christmas.

I’ve worked a full day in just my dressing gown, which is not as cool as you might think; you just can’t get your brain in gear.

I’ve even worked a very hung-over morning in bed, there wasn’t such a problem getting the brain into gear that time, it only seemed to have neutral, and someone had lost the keys.

I’ve made a wooden table and an apple pie. I’ve finished books and computer games. I’ve made £70 on eBay and spent £25 of the profits on a second hand Playstation steering wheel (rubbish by the way) and all within the acceptable margins of “break time” over the working day.

So where does looking at stuff on the Internet and attempting the world’s first suicide by tea (200.62 cups in a day according to http://www.energyfiend.com/death-by-caffeine/) fit in?

There’s obviously a certain amount of stuff looking and tea drinking/making that fall within the bounds of your regular working day, perhaps an hour in total.

Well, I can assure you my daily “slack hour” was easily covered as a matter of course with an online sudoku here and a round up of the new music and films there.

This then begs the question what have I done with the other 4 so far today? I think I can chalk up half of one to work, God help me, meaning I’ve spent 3 and a half hours staring at the sky. It’s not even a very nice sky.

I am astonished really, I didn’t think I had the capacity to manage that long doing nothing, which brings me back to my first point, have I really made the most of it?

Clearly not in comparison with my more dynamic days, however I can think of nothing I’d like less than standing in the cold, getting increasingly frustrated with the vast gulf between my woodwork skills and my overblown self-confidence.

Finally all my navel-gazing has led me to a conclusion. I have come to believe that making the most of something is to accept the nature of that thing, immerse yourself in it and do it to the best of your abilities.

Taking this board I think the best thing for me to do is grab this “sod all” by the horns, sit back and enjoy the ride, wherever it stays.

My last week at home - Tuesday

As a way to combat the nervousness associated with this whole moving job thing I’m still thinking of the good stuff.

Today’s official “Good Thing” is that I may lose a bit of weight.

As I sit here at just gone 5:30, I’m chomping through my second piece of butter rich (did anyone else see Planet Earth on Sunday?) toast which is my usual “finished work” snack.

OK, it’s not quite the usual, at the very last minute I decided not to slather on peanut butter.

Some people may cringe at this, some may even feel their hearts working a bit harder, but I can assure you, this is the only way to ensure enjoyment of peanut butter. It’s the way I was brought up and it’s what I’ll be passing on to my kids.

Back in the day, peanut butter wasn’t what it is today; it was somewhat drier, meaning that forgoing the butter left you with some dry bread and some dry peanuts mushed to the consistency of Polyfilla on top. This being exactly as it sounds, rubbish, we had only one course of action… butter up the peanut butter.

These days I think the manufacturers have worked it out too, peanut butter today is infinitely creamier and one time it was even oily. So oily in fact there was a shining pool of purest grease shimmering at the top of the jar.

It was as I slipped my knife through the ululating waves of fat that I thought, "I really should stop adding extra lard", but once you’ve learned something as tasty as that it’s very hard to unlearn.

So here it is, I’m pretty lazy and I love fatty foods with extra fat please. This plus the warm, daily hibernation of working at home makes it pretty clear, I might have put on a few pounds.

I can see a couple of ways getting back in an office will help this, firstly, I’m going to have to get up and go somewhere, secondly, I think meal two and a half at 5:30pm will have to stop. Most likely because I’ll be working like a nike football sewer or because I’m back on the tube where, I can assure you, my politeness will not let me scoff a hot stinky Cornish pasty as I travel.

To offer you a clearer picture, I’m not fat, I’m not even clinically overweight. I am, however, at the top of my BMI range, which hopefully means I won’t have to pay any fat tax when they invent it.

When you combine this top heavy BMI with my chicken legs, you would be forgiven for saying I looked a bit porky. Well not porky exactly, perhaps portly.

Front on, I look almost fine but have a look at me from the side and I’m the model of a Mr Man and while at them moment I’m more like Mr Greedy, it will be nice to bring that down to Mr Skinny after a good meal.

My last week at home - Monday

Monday morning, as Wife leaps like a slow motion salmon from our bed, I keep my eyes tight shut and remain determined to enjoy the 5th to last time I'll be lounging about while she is busy beautifying for the day ahead.

I've been working from home for the past 5 years, 1 year in the extended state of mild panic that is freelance web development, and 4 with a thoroughly modern company where everybody works from home.

Unsurprisingly, It's been good. No travel costs, nice lunch's almost everyday and knocking off at 5:30 means exactly that. I regularly have 3 hours before Wife gets home expecting her tea on the table, leaving me plenty of time to work out my thumbs on the Playstation.

This blessing however, comes with a curse, and while our cleverly named cat Tiger is good at sticking his bum in my face as I'm trying to work, he's not much of a conversationalist. My human contact tends to hover about the "'Just that thanks' up at the shop" level.

And it's here that the problem lies, there are people in prison for some pretty serious crimes that spend less time on their own than me and I've decided enough is enough.

I've only gone and got myself an office job for which I'll have to get on the tube!

So as I lie there, listening to the nonsense from the radio at just gone 7, I know these leisurely starts are coming to an end. As time ticks inexorably on, I'm travelling second by second further from next weeks alarm call, which to Wife's dismay will start with a 6.

Despite hitherto unknown early starts, with the exception of some flights and my first 11 Christmas's, I'm still excited about it.

Imagine being able to turn my eyes from the screen/keyboard (my typing is a not quite "touch", more "fumbling grope") and see a real life person.

More than this I get to be one of the sour-faced commuters, cramming into a train, headphones plugged in, reading yesterdays news in a free paper.

Some morning's I'll have to stand next to someone with terrible morning breath and try not to gag in their face.

I'll be able to tut unnecessarily at the old lady enjoying a day "up town" who's forgotten to get her free travel card out with the military precision required to slip through the barriers at speed.

I'll be able to join in the bitchy office gossip, who's done what with who? How much are they being paid? Weren't they wearing that yesterday?

I'll meet people I don't even like, officious jobsworths with a total lack of responsibility for their own actions and a fake laugh.

I may even make an enemy.

All of the things the working masses take for granted, all the unpleasant niggles, the twitching worries and blood vessel bursting annoyances, all of these things are soon to be mine, and in all honesty, I can't wait.