Love and onions

I got my new bike wheels this week; they didn't have the right type in stock for me so I got sent the ones from two bikes up; felt like a proper Brucey Bonus. Every cloud has a silver lining, they say – but this one had two. First off, I got to stay over with my pal and have giggles and sillinesses way late into the early morning hours the night they got taken, which was a real blessing, and then I got these new, faster, fancier wheels, which make me feel like a million bucks. So the question is, then, was there even a cloud at all – or was it all just silver? Sort of like when I lost my car but made a good new friend.

England beat France yesterday, and Australia the week before – and I swear to God I've been more shocked by those two results than by just about anything in my life, only the various departures of Princess Diana and Jose Mourinho even coming close. I can't quite get my head around it; it's the sort of thing that should never have happened. Now I'm worried that some sort of power in the universe has shifted, been transformed – how will we live if England stop being gallant, oh-so-near losers and start actually winning things when they're not supposed to?

I've been out a little bit after dark this week – which is something I haven't ever done, being a committed sort of daytime person. Anyway, what I've discovered is that other people sort of live at night instead of day, and that they're different to us: they talk more loudly, they dress a little shinier, and they're not so good at walking in straight lines. At first I thought it was because of the lack of light, but now I think it's a mating ritual type thing. The people who live at night are much more huggy, also, and they wear less clothes, even though it's colder at night. I wonder why women like to show off their cleavages and chest areas.

I was a little forlorn this week, on and off until Thursday, I think. Partly I know what it was – two things spring to mind – but also I sort of surmised that I'd been really up for the best part of a fortnight and that can't last forever, it's just the way it goes. The forlornness comes, then, and you can just greet it like an old friend, and welcome it, even though you know it won't be staying long. Knowledge of temporariness is a wonderful thing.

Shooting Stars is perhaps the funniest and cleverest TV show ever made; at least, I can't think of anything to rival it. The Mighty Boosh is bloody good, though, as well as Bang, Bang! It's Reeves and Mortimer. I like the way Vic and Bob dance. I wish I could dance like Bob.

I've applied to go on another TV show, with Jerry Springer, and they sound keen; this time I could win fifty thousand pounds. If I won fifty thousand pounds here is what I would do: get my teeth filled (they've needed doing for the past three years, since my dodgy Dutch fillings fell out); have laser eye surgery; give ten percent to charity; maybe buy a laptop; probably start living somewhere with a shower and cooking facilities. I guess that leaves quite a lot – I'd probably put the rest in the bank and not think about it, just sort of spend it as normal and carry on as normal. Fifty thousand pounds is more than I've earned in my entire working life thus far – and it's about seven years' wages at present rate. It's kind of inconceivable, I guess – but I don't think it would really change me. I'm sure I'd still be as tight as ever.

I wonder what other people would do? Buy stuff, I guess – or travel. But that's the thing with me, I don't really buy stuff, or want anything – I mean, it all just seems like a pointless weight at the end of the day (and God bless God for inventing digital storage so that I can keep all my pictures and music and writing – the only things I have aside from clothes and football boots – in practically invisible space!) – and also I can already travel wherever I want and do all the things I want to do, as I've already demonstrated. Kids? Would I want them to have more than I've had – when I seem to be as happy as anyone I've ever known, and isn't that all anyone wants anyway? How would it help them? Or would it hinder them? I guess you don't need money to feel financially well off and secure, and to do all the things you want to do. Still, it's nice not to have to think about it, I guess…

An equation: five guitars + money from dad + a New York bike + a rollerbladed car + three other crashes + some swindled phone calls + a charity shop window + lots of shoplifting + another crash + a load of paint over a Mercedes + Julian Hill's bike tyres + Joel Hayes's guitar + the school guitars and Christmas tree + a few Jimi Hendrix albums + some slight damage to a penthouse skylight + a panel off the Chrysler building + some sneaky nights in youth hostels = some swindled TV money + an envelope containing two thousand dollars + some unpaid loans + an uncompleted guitar deal + two bike wheels + a New York bike + various eBay swindlers + a car stereo and phone + a cambelted Mazda + the money for the charity shop window + eight years of good deeds and clean living + lots of volunteer work and donations + a soon-to-be-fulfilled duty to goodness + my blue Squier Strat. Or does it? (A: More or less…)

I saw my area manager this week, half-expecting to get fired; as it transpired, however, nothing of the sort (even though he was negative and demotivating and useless as ever). I was sort of disappointed in that; I mean, you think you're gonna get fired and so you start thinking of what you'll do instead, and suddenly you come up with all these really cool ideas and it seems like a real rosy future full of liberation and excitement – and then when it doesn't happen you're like, ho hum, back to the norm, to the known. Not that I'm complaining; I like it where I am. And I guess it means I've still got work to do, equations to balance, karma to pay off. S'all good.

Someone asked me this week if I was religious; normally I say no, but maybe mutter something about being sort of spiritual, believing in God, miracles, and all that. This time, however, I said I guessed I was, in the way that you can be a bit Christian, a bit Hindu, a bit Buddhist, you know, go to church one day, do a bit of meditating and chanting, do a bit of yoga and tai-chi, pray to a mountain and hug a tree, invoke Ganesh and Kali and say your Our Father; I guess that's just being New Age.

Another person asked me a while ago if everything I wrote was true; well, if they were referring to my book then I'd say, yes, ultra-true, because that's the way it has to be, there's no point it being any way else, only the truth can really inspire – and if they were referring to my blog then I'd say, pretty much, as far as things I do, things I say and feel, etcetera, it's all stuff that's happening, I'm not making any of this up – apart from the bits I'd like to think are obviously made up, when I go off into mad fantasies and gibberishes, the bits I never expect anyone to take seriously. Except I know some people do – that thing at the end of my Countdown account for example, about flying around a studio and my toes being all a kimble – I mean, come on! – I know some people thought that was real. Also, all that stuff about the flooding, and me having conversations with people called Arthur, which I thought was quite clearly an exercise in dialogue and, anyway, I don't know anyone called Arthur (is anyone called Arthur these days?) – I'm surprised that wasn't seen for what it was by all. So, book, yes, blog, yes – mostly.

The same person also asked why I was disliking Leeds, which I said I did in the entry I wrote after I came back from London; the answer was/is, oops, sorry, it was a slip of the tongue, I meant to say "Yorkshire" – and what I meant by that was not Yorkshire as a whole, this marvellous, beautiful, fascinating and friendly county – England's largest, let us never forget! – but, I guess, my life since moving back here, and in particular the expectations I had had for it. What I meant, I suppose, was the way it had turned out with regard to old friends, who have been uniformly useless in welcoming me back into their bosom, despite the efforts I have made, and despite the good times we have had when together; I guess they're all too busy now with – going to be unnecessarily bitter here – their partners and watching TV and working their crappy jobs and being old before their time; that's what I meant. I was unhappy because of that, and because I had found myself therefore practically alone in my own land, and because friends and family hadn't matched my expectations, and what with my girlfriend not coming here either, as planned, it all seemed to have fallen rather flat on its face (with barely a mention of my half-life brother and the dark and stagnant hole of Wakefield). But that was then, and this is now, and having grown weary and given up on that life, it has freed me to move on to something new, and to make younger friends who still have some life left in them, with whom I feel more kinship, with whom I am reminded that, although 31, I am not yet dead, and to move to Leeds – albeit in my slightly unorthodox and homeless way – and delight in the vibes and sights of this glorious city, which daily reveals charming and hitherto unseen-by-mine eyes delights. I mean, Leeds is awesome! There's so much here, so much life, so much beauty – and so many gorgeous buildings. I can hardly believe this is the same city I lived in twelve years ago.

We went out Friday night to check out this thing called 'Light Night', wherein the museums and libraries were open till late, and all manner of bohemian thing was going on, and I discovered some real delights. The street performers, though, were a bit of a let down – except for this one guy who was, without a doubt, the most awesome thing I have ever seen, and a true inspiration; he just turned up with his carrier bag, got out some candles, set them up in a semi-circle, put on a mask, threw off his shirt, and then with his big belly out and a good-sized crowd having gathered proceeded to do these three insane dances shaking a bean can with a stone in it and slapping his belly and shouting madly while people laughed and dug and I was seriously digging him more than anything I've ever dug before – and luckily I managed to get one of our group to dig along with me while the others stood bemused and dismissed laconically not understanding at all. But his shrieks and shouts and his mask and his dance – everything about it was perfect – and even the ending he just threw off his mask up into the air, into the crowd, and then walked off laughing, picked up his shirt and disappeared among the throng never to be seen again, his semi-circle of tea-lights still fluttering, the carrier bag and bean can and stick still there several hours later when I went back to check maybe hunting souvenirs and wishing to learn the secret of his can (it was just Heinz), a real one-off, a – perhaps – once in a lifetime performance – which made me dig it even more, for I rejoiced in the synchronicity and timing of events that had led us there for that one perfect moment when we could have so easily been anywhere else in this marvellous city. He filled me with energy – he filled me with beans – and he made me want to do what he was doing, the mad dance, the mask, the beauty of it all – he reminded me of my time in Dublin, with John Dunn and the busking we did – as The Bogen Wongen Men – playing tin whistles and finger cymbals under parachutes and dancing madly with the drunks to the sound of the triangle and our shrieks and insanities earning us around fifty pounds in a couple of hours, plus many delights and photo opportunities and giggles and passing bemusements and smiles. I guess it means that I'd like to do that sort of thing again; I guess it's all adding up to a sort of rediscovery of one's wild and free youth – in a purely for joy, I don't want to hurt anyone (or myself) sort of way. If that makes any sense.

So, in a nutshell: Leeds is awesome, I'm a little loopy, but nice with it, and, slowly but surely, my youthful, silliness heart is reawakening after the seriousness of long term relationship and isolated university-then-teacher years, and Wakefield. Or something like that; I mean, I don't really know what I'm writing, after all, words just keep coming out and I seem powerless to stop them and I'm never really sure whether there's any point, it just seems like a fun thing to do in the moment.

This blog interests me; today, I didn't really have anything to write, and it seemed like I'd almost come to the end of something. I mean, we had the end of expression a few weeks – or was it months? – ago, and I haven't really been doing that since, and we also put an end to the moaning, preferring instead to take action and to do something about it. Last week, then, we had a pretty in depth report on all the things I did each day, and I'd thought since then that there probably wasn't much point in doing that again, since posterity has now got a pretty good taste of what my current life is all about and I'm not really one for too much repetition – so, tell me, what else is there left to write about? What am I to do unless I'm to let my wild mind free on the keys and just churn out any old twaddle, as I suspect I have mostly done today? Expression has gone, information has gone, introspection and investigation (with regard to my love relationships) has gone; what else is there? What is left to say? Of course, there's the book – creation, which is probably the best of all of these – and that will remain, but beyond that? I'm not so sure. Education? A differing but complementary form of creation? Nothing? Or, perhaps, the same as it ever was, once these words are done with and these thoughts, even, forgotten? I guess I could just write less. :-) I guess we'll see when next Sunday comes…