2007-09-30 - 1:59 a.m.

Being good is overrated. It certainly hasn’t helped my ludicrous sleeping pattern. I’ve tried, though. Lord knows I’ve tried. Tried becomes tired very easily. I’d put down the bottle and picked up the teacup with a mind to joining the rest of humanity in the 9-5 cycle. Didn’t happen. I must be spending too much time with the cat because I’ve started to sleep like one: napping indiscriminately, day or night. Take yesterday/today for example. I’d been up since 5am after a fitful night’s repose. I stayed awake throughout the day, reading stuff and drinking Earl Grey having finally got bored of smoky old Lapsang. At around 11pm I started to nod off on the couch. ‘Yes!’ I thought, ‘I’m finally normal!’ I kept like this blearily for the next hour or so before going upstairs to bed and sleeping in my clothes. I woke up at 4am with no chance of going back to sleep. This is the thanks I get for doing the right thing and not going for an afternoon nap. I’m not a fucking farmer and I don’t want to be getting up at 4am. I’d rather, ideally, go to bed at 4am and get up around noon. Justifiably annoyed, I hatched a plan to thwart the capricious demon-gods of slumber. I decided that I’d go downstairs, watch Better Off Dead (1985), have a couple of gins and go back to bed at 6am so I could emerge again, rejuvenated, some hours hence.

Except this didn’t happen. Oh no. Instead I drank the bottle and woke up at 10.30PM having gone to bed at some time I don’t really remember – about 12 noon I think. There was, however, one saving grace to this whole debacle. That is, I got to listen to radio in bed before getting up at midnight and brushing my phlegm-coated teeth. I got a digital radio for Christmas and it’s been a wonderful boon. I fluctuate between Radio 4, Radio 7 and Planet Rock. Planet Rock only seem to play Rainbow, Rush and hair metal bands like Poison and Whitesnake, which is more than fine with me. Nothing like a bit of Van Halen to get your fists pumping in the morning. Radio 4 is good for news, the afternoon play and the bizarre ritual of the Shipping Forecast. Radio 7, though, is fan-fucking-tastic. A treasure-trove of vintage comedy including Tony Hancock, Kenneth Williams, Lee and Herring, the Marx Brothers, Chris Morris… and many others! They also broadcast short stories from the likes of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and various sci-fi stuff. It’s a glowing bedside gift for the insomniac. One of the things I like best about the radio is that I never know what’s on. Unlike my TV schedule which is regimented and planned days in advance, the radio is pure serendipity. When I woke up earlier I switched on Radio 5 in the hope of getting the football results. Instead they were discussing the Rugby World Cup which I have no interest in but I listened to anyway because there was a lively phone-in debate about whether it was wrong of the English fans to sing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ whilst the New Zealand players were dancing. Were it not for the radio such matters of political correctness would have eluded me.

I have no idea why people phone in to these things. Unless I was drunk I’d be terrified. Shit, even when drunk phoning into a radio station and bantering with a DJ is pretty low on my list. Do some people actually like the sound of their voices? They can’t all be drunk, so what motivates people to blabber their inarticulate opinions all over the airwaves? At least the Internet affords anonymity, but on the radio or television one’s foolishness is hanging out for all to see. I wouldn’t like thinking about lots of people in bed thinking I’m foolish. Maybe the people desperate to voice their opinions to the unseen masses are more cocksure than I, more vainglorious. Maybe I’m just being a pussy not phoning in and yelling about some contentious issue of the day. After all, why study and research a subject when you can just go route one and talk loudly with the note of triumph inherent in the gormless? Anyway, once I’d finally heard the football results (poor Chelsea!) I switched over to Radio 7 as I wasn’t quite ready to bound downstairs and write this shit. I was treated to a Canadian programme called ‘Vinyl Café’. I’d never heard of it before and at first I thought it was some twee Garrison Keillor garbage. (A sidenote: Americans have some really cool names.) However, once I got used to the host’s voice and started paying more attention to his words I soon became entranced. The theme of the show was childhood and the host, Stuart, would play songs performed by kids between anecdotes and short stories. I certainly wouldn’t have heard ruminations on the merits of Dr. Seuss sandwiched between records by a 14 year old Aretha Franklin, Smoosh and the Langley Schools Music Project on any television show currently being shown.

So that was nice. I know I was grouching earlier but this crepuscular schedule has its advantages. I mean, it’s not as if I like sitting in the living room at 10am reading the newspapers in silence with my parents. In fact, it makes me want to break a window. Or at least bump into the table and pretend it was an accident. I don’t like thinking about my father’s habit of coming in from jogging and eating his breakfast BEFORE he has a shower. I don’t like seeing him in his cast-off exercise costume consisting of shorts, t-shirt and hideous green trainers that I wore 12 years ago. I also loathe my mother’s habit of reading aloud from the paper bits that she finds amusing before I have a chance to read them myself. I can tolerate them much better in the evening when I’ve had a chance to psyche myself up. Now though, it’s what, 2am? I’ve got about 6 hours before I have to see them. The whole night is laid out for me and I can do anything I damn well want. Hell, I don’t even have to get dressed. I can watch the Three Fugitaves starring Nick Nolte. I can torment the cat by opening tins of tuna and putting them out of reach. I can make soup!

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