For Tomorrow

You could say:
These days, life just seems to slip past in a blur of non-events, non-days, non-weeks where nothing happens to no one and everything stays the same while imperceptibly fading in colour, imagination and joy.

Or if that's too dark:
As the days blend into one, a calm sense of normality wraps itself around, a warm blanket against the chills of the world; the firm belief that nothing changes without reason.

Less abstract:
It's bloody hot outside, and the stifling heat frankly kills any desire in me to go and "do stuff". I'd rather just sit inside and hide my skin from the burning sun, tearing through a DVD collection and chuckling at daytime repeats of ancient sitcoms.

Existential pessimism:
Life is like sliding down a muddy slope into a hole. We cling on to any sodden clay that our fingers can grasp, but ultimately it is all a futile resistance of the inevitability of slipping deeper and further, down into the dark, away from the light, until eventually we hit the bottom and are trapped forever.

Grounded practicality:
Why is it that the one repeating coincidence in my life is that between my sudden desire to write on my blog and my desperate need to get a haircut. Does my power come from my hair?

The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect

"Take a seat please, sir."

I meander towards the coat rack, shrug my jacket off and in one move swing it round and up onto the hook. I feel my feet slip a little on the thin layer of human hair that lies slick on the tiled floor. The humus layer of the hairdresser's salon. My nostrils wince from the constant sensation of sniffing the tip of a bottle of shampoo.

The leather chair is too low for me, and it takes a couple of awkward shuffles in the seat to get comfortable. It's slightly clammy from the previous occupant, having been vacated only seconds before, and my jeans stick a little as I moved around. The leather lets out a pained groan.

The top I'm wearing zips up to about halfway up my neck, just gracing the bottom of my hair at the back, and the Man comes over and wordlessly unzips it by about six inches, folding the collar down into a V-neck.

"Arms out, please!"

I catch a glimpse of the baffled look that contorts my face in the monstrous mirror facing me. As I slide my arms into the plastic tent that will shield my crotch from the cascades of falling curls, my mind registers that I need to remove my spectacles. The tent is pulled tight around my neck - so tight that I let out a little gurgle of shock.

"Just a bit off the length please, and sort of smartened up around the sides."

This is pretty much word-for-word exactly what I have said to any person about to use scissors to decimate my horrendous white-man-fro in the last 10 years. And yet this time, the Man looks at me as if I've just asked him to shove two cabbages up his jumper and pole dance to a CD of Ukrainian electro-funk. I return his facial puzzlement in kind.

"I need to wash your hair first. The hair, it is too curly and I think you have hair gel in that will stick to my scissors."

I try to hide my embarrassment at what is clearly his disgust for my dirty hair. In actuality I washed it a little over an hour ago, but I acknowledge that the hair putty I liberally applied yesterday may have lingered and could cause problems. Maybe I smell.

"Erm, well only if you think it really needs it..."

His eyes narrow.

"It's not going to cut very well without it. I need to put some conditioner in."

I'm trapped, so emotionally pinned into this chair that I may as well be handcuffed to it. I feel like a kid who's grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, being forced into admitting culpability for a crime he didn't commit. A crime of fashion - a crime of curly hair. It would be absurd to leave now, and yet the Man has all but told me that if I don't pay the extra to get my hair washed that he's going to be reduced to lopping it all off with the sort of industrial shears usually reserved for sheep.

I admit defeat and agree. Only then do I noticed the sink in front of me. This is the first time I've ever had the wash-n-cut treatment, so I'm not quite sure how this is going to work, but I'm fairly confident it will involve some sort of rotation mechanism being brought into action. I will leisurely recline and take the chance to reflect on an article I just read in The Economist about a recent coup in Madagascar. Maybe even pick up the magazine again and have another quick browse.

"Lean forward."

With a snap I realise that I've been living in a fantasy world. The Man's instruction is laughably simplistic - far more than having to lean, I have to arse-wiggle my way to the very tip of the chair (the leather moans with each squirm), and gingerly tip my head over the sink. I'm fairly certain that my underwear is showing at the base of my spine above my jeans.

A large, rough hand grabs the back of my head and shoves me face first right into the sink, so that my nose is mere centimetres from the plughole. Around it congeals the remains of whichever poor sod last had this treatment. A ginger, by the looks of it. I try to escape from my current predicament by imagining the terrible bullying this poor ginger must have faced as a child, similar perhaps to my own torment as a curly.

The next few minutes are a hazy blur, a collage of sound and darkness, but afterwards I recall a warm wet sensation, a lot of rubbing, the dizzying smell of freshly-cleaned public toilets and a vague sense of violation. My eyes sting, as does my sense of pride and English reserve.

"Tissue."

I'm flung back in my seat as the Man massages my head and growls perversely.

"I love your hair."

As he begins to cut, I settle into my more comfortable hair-cutting rhetoric. Oh yes, I say, you may love this curly hair but I guarantee you wouldn't if it was yours. I try to point out the horror of having to contend with a monstrous, wilful mass of wiry curls that scream defiantly from your scalp, laughing in the face of any hair-product / comb / rage based offensive. The Man banally mutters some unlikely annoyance at having straight hair, his outrageously well-controlled coiffure cackling in its pointy fascism at my ever-depleting Brillo-pad mop.

"Is your mother Asian?"

Sans spectacles, I can't tell in the mirror whether a look of dry irony has painted his face, so I try to suppress my puzzlement and explain that I get my curly hair from some long-forgotten Scottish ancestry. His only response to this is to brutally shove my head to the left (a twinge of whiplash) and start cutting, a little too close for comfort, around my ear.

This goes on for some time, with intermittent conversational niceties invariably being interrupted by an unexpected assault on my spinal column. At one point he helpfully points out that I should get myself a nice London girlfriend, before puffing out his cheeks and blowing the detritus of my former fringe into my reddened eyes.

Eventually the agony is over, and I'm invited to put my spectacles on to feast my eyes on the new me. As the world blinks back into focus, I stare expectantly at my own head in the mirror. The hair is a fair bit shorter than I wanted, revealing rather too much of the bulk of my obese cranium. It's far shorter at the sides than at the top, and has been slicked back by the Man's strong hands. The net effect is somewhere between Will Smith circa the early nineties, and Christian Bale in American Psycho. I feel slightly sick.

"Yeah it's great, thanks. New man!"

I stretch my mouth into a smile, which is reciprocated.

"Hair gel?"

I shake my head kindly.

"No, thanks."

His eyes sparkle. A smile plays about his lips. I hear his stomach rumble as he prepares to administer the coup de grâce.

"Chili sauce? Mayo?"

It takes me a second to realise this is a joke. I try not to look like I'm about to spew my lunch all over the plastic tent covering my knees, and reject the offer through a judder of nervous laughter.

"No, thanks."

I get up from my seat as a previously unseen hair monkey (read: trainee) scuttles out, apparently from under my chair, to snatch the plastic cover off me. We make our way to the cash register and I pull my wallet out of my jeans. The Man meets my eye and smiles.

"Hope to see you again!"

I grab my coat off the rack. No longer do I notice the coating of human hair across the floor, nor the acrid burn of shampoo in my nostrils.

"I'm sure you will."

I shove ten pounds into his outstretched hand, the scissors still hanging off his little finger, and sharply turn and walk out the door. The breeze is cool on my scalp, and I quickly pull my hood up round my ears.

Agoraphobia

And so once again that time of year has come. Fairy lights lining the streets, nights closing in ever earlier, and bugger me if it isn't freezing cold outside. Dark in the morning and dark when I leave work, daytime sunshine outside is a tease, taunting me with its warm glow as I sit at my desk hammering away at an icy keyboard as my fingers slowly seize up from the cold.

In the evening, why would I want to go outside? Keep inside and warm, and a whole world of entertainment is at my fingertips. And so it's a marathon of art films, new albums (via Amazon and iTunes, natch) and, for the first time in a while, video games.

I'd forgotten this simple pleasure. The worries of the world dissolve when you can hold, in your sweaty palms, the ability to take a small yellow rat, summon the power of lightning and use it to explode a Giant Evil Robot. Cackle in glee as you mercilessly plug poorly-realised archetypal villains in the face with an excessively loud blast of hot lead. Squirm around in fear as you bat the fat zombie woman off your neck long enough to take a swing with that fire axe you found lying around in the preposterously outdated water well round the corner. Smile as you see her head pop off and rather more than eight pints of blood come flying out of her neck.

Video games invariably get a lot of hate thrown at them. As with cinema and rock 'n' roll before it, the fantasy provided by these simple games proves an easy scapegoat for explaining away societies' problems. Rising unemployment, a domineering drinking culture and an increasingly disenfranchised populous are, of course, minor factors in catalysing the spread of violent crime when compared to a teenager unloading his stress by shooting a few badly pixellated zombies in the face in front of his television. Or a child imagining he can race around a cartoon world on his little kart, flinging bananas and storm clouds as heralds of simple and impermanent death.

Violent video games are the new video nasty, and in many cases the publishers of these games couldn't be more pleased. As the exile to VHS allowed the development of a truly independent film industry spawning classics such as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Cannibal Holocaust, The Evil Dead etc., as well as establishing a proving ground for future mainstream directors such as Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro, who started with schlock zombie horror and ended up directing Lord of The Rings and Pan's Labyrinth respectively, so too have studios such as Rockstar games, makers of the Grand Theft Auto series, flourished under their initial classification as outsiders.

The truth of the matter is these games are no more dangerous in precipitating violent culture than the many generations of equivalent controversies that went before them. In no way is this more in evidence than a consideration of the one of the most passive and frankly boring computer games ever created.

Microsoft's Flight Simulator was a flagship application for many years, and remains probably the least offensive computer game ever created. Yet it is also the most closely linked game to the single most violent and despicable act of terrorism of the 21st Century. In the same way that it would be preposterous to accuse Microsoft of training al Qaeda, so too would it be completely inappropriate to fling accusations of encouraging youth violence at what is, at it's core, a fledgling creative industry.

Ultimately video games should be treated as what they are - games. They do not encourage political doctrine, they do not promote violent lifestyles. They are the homeground of the geek and the techie, and they open their arms to those with a desire for a winning combination of fun and sloth. If we really want to deal with the rising problem of violence in society, we need to look to the root cause of the problem, not what is at worst an unfortunate offspring.

Anyway I must be off. The bloodlust is rising and there are banks to rob, police to kill and zombies to mutilate...

Space Dementia

I just can't help myself, the mad impulse in me is screaming skip to the end, and only through some incredible force of will can I hold myself back. It arrived four days ago, sheathed in bubblewrap, squeaking a little when I pulled it gently out of the packaging. I want to rip it open and force it into my DVD player, scream like a giddy schoolgirl and sit there and watch all ten hours at once, my eyes hollowing slowly, the feeling draining from first my fingers, then my toes and my feet, as I slowly slip, smiling, into an ecstatic and vegetative state of satisfied hardcore geekiness.

As you may (or may not) have guessed, I'm talking about Battlestar Galactica season four! Through some woeful timing I've gone back to start watching the entire first three seasons with my flatmate (a BG virgin) and now I can't bear the fact that it's going to be weeks (weeks! weeks!) before I can quench the giddy thirst for more, more, MORE with which I was left, panting, after the end of season three.

For those of you who have never watched this magnificent television programme, think The Wire in space. With robots and explosions and demented scientists and all the same intelligence and brutal allegory. As with all genre-based television, Battlestar Galactica is a hard sell to people who wouldn't watch it anyway, so I won't bother trying to convince you. I will say however that it sits neatly in my top three teevee (sic) ever - along with the aforementioned The Wire and Kieslowski's Dekalog.

The real question here is - should I stick to my arbitrarily-defined principles and save season four until I've re-digested seasons one (excellent), two (better) and three (spectacular) first? Or should I whore myself to the god of hedonism and shove it merrily into my gaping eyeholes, cackling with delight at the naughty pleasure of a televisual binge, and finally admitting to myself I'm a demented child of the now-now-now YouTube generation?

Clowns

Proof, if it were needed, that the old adage is true. If you don't have anything worth saying, then don't bother writing an article on it in a national newspaper.

I am, literally, speechless.

Once And Never Again

Today the Long Blondes announced that they have split, following the stroke suffered by guitarist and songwriter Dorian Cox in June. Quite simply one of the best British bands this century, it is not only a personal tragedy for Cox and his family, as well as the band, but also a great loss to music. In 3 short years the band leave a legacy of a mere two albums, each spectacular in their own way, as well as a clutch of catchy singles, inventive b-sides and infectiously fun demos.

Intelligent, witty and spiked with humour, the Blondes' music has often driven me to (entirely justified) hyperbole, and catching a handful of live performances throughout their career ensured that they remain cemented as one my favourite bands. From their ramshackle early performances in Sheffield before they signed with Domino, through the indie pop perfection of debut Someone to Drive You Home, up to the slick electro of their second album, the Blondes always carried off indie rock with more style, panache and personality than any of their peers.

With a small but devoted following, the Long Blondes will hopefully be reclaimed as one of the most overlooked bands of the decade, and Cox as a great and underrated songwriter. With songs lamenting a weekend without makeup, dissolving in the seduction of fast cars, or simply floating on dreams of running away on motorways to relive your glory days, the Blondes provided something rare in music. Virtually every band in existence offers the listener a choice of style or substance. With the Long Blondes, quite simply, you could have both.

Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars)

The Chinese are going to the Moon. Take a moment to digest this information, and then ask youself, why?

When the Apollo 11 Lunar Module touched down on the surface of the Moon, on the 16th of July, 1969, it was no small step for a nation striving to prove that it was the leader of the world, free or otherwise. Logistically, economically and politically the Apollo programme was a nightmare of epic proportions. Let me put this another way; only 12 men have ever walked on the surface of the Moon, and the last one left nearly 36 years ago.

The scientific benefits of going to the Moon were minimal at best. There is little useful you can learn from the low-gravity, zero-atmosphere surface of the Moon that you can't learn from the zero-gravity vacuum of space. Why else would Alan Shepherd be allowed the luxury of playing golf on one of only 6 manned missions that have ever reached the Moon's surface?

The real impact of the Moon landings was political. The twelve men who stepped onto the surface (and the six who merely circled a couple of times round the block) were instant patriots for America. Great war heroes, who had won a war against seemingly insurmountable odds. They gave a nation that craves jingoism a victory, that somehow clouded the rather more real defeat in Vietnam.

China is embroiled in no crippling war. The struggles that China faces today are those of the Western media, and the impact of Western ideals on a culture which must unfurl its protective shell in order to blossom. The 2008 Olympics, marred as they were by protests, arrests and an uncomfortable silence, marked China out as, at least in part, a modern, developed, and spectacularly wealthy country. To put a man on the Moon would show them as the true economic power on the globe today - as there is certainly no other country with the resources, financial backing and political single-mindedness to be able to achieve this feat.

Yet it seems likely that the true benefit for China would be more intangible. Throw aside the political, scientific and nationalistic benefits, and imagine the sheer kudos. Imagine a world where a country can prove its superiority not by tackling it's human rights issues, nor by eradicating internal poverty. Where a country can openly deny free speech, outlaw religious tolerance, spend years occupying and oppressing a peaceful country.

Imagine a world where, despite all of this, one man standing on the surface of the Moon can look back at the Earth, and see that his nation has taken a great leap to become the most powerful and important nation on the planet. And imagine, as he looks back, how small and insignificant the Earth must seem.

It's Only The End Of The World

Hysteria is a strange creature. It spreads, a virus, infecting everything it touches. A virus, yes, but one that feeds on a conscious surrendering to the apparently inevitable. The most rational mind becomes gripped by the desire to give in and follow those around it as they slip into despair. The nauseating and reassuring feeling of falling suddenly. The human impulse for calamity beyond personal control.

Economic turmoil is a factual eventuality not because capitalism is a flawed structure, though it is, but because the collective being of civilisation is a coward and a fool. It fears its own weaknesses and thereby succumbs immediately to them. Its sight is narrow and self-involved, and never looks beyond the present. It never sees further than the near past and does not consider the yet-to-be.

A scapegoat is always to be found. Rich bankers sucking the system dry and lining their pockets with the residue. Irresponsible investors throwing aside acumen for chance. A tactless media whipping up frenzy in a bid to stave off the growing spectre of irrelevance. The truth is that all of these are symptoms of the human virus. Capitalism is the distilled form of the most vulgar and strong of human impulses - the need for success. The need to rise above the rest. The perverse notion that the individual is the driving force behind everything. That one person can stand alone in victory.

If the sudden downturn in global markets shows anything, it is that the individual does not exist as a distinct entity. All of us are affected. As the drunken headiness of success crashes in the gutter to spew out the half-digested notions of charity and economic and social responsibility, the weakened state is infected with a hysteria that impacts every person it touches. Those at the top slip on the edge of a precipice, and those at the bottom shelter from the debris that rains down.

As with violence, greed and jealousy, panic begets panic. A recession is not the apocalypse, but if confidence is the life force of a globalized economy, and hysteria the cancer that eats it away, then brace yourself for a shock. This dead meat is going to start to stink.

It's Raining Today

As the rain falls lazily from the grey sky, he sits inside feeling the chokehold's absence. Breathing space has afforded a momentary awakening. A loosened grip on the throat of his mind's voice, usually held firm by the hum-drum, cash in hand, out of pocket, day in, day out existence, has lifted the dizzying fog, and gasping for air he reaches for the nearest bowl and thrusts his face into it.

A purge of thought, emotion and control leaves him shaking, a steadying hand reaching for a towel. Hot and damp, it burns his skin, searing the expression of disgust, and cauterizing the gaping wound in his intellect.

He collapses back, breathing deep, feeling the cool air percolate through his nostrils. A reflection catches his eye, an unrecognised figure, haggard, distant and stern. It's lips purse, and then open to speak.

"Get a haircut."

Sexy Boy

Accuse me if you wish of not understanding the feminine mind, but I reckon there must be nothing as attractive as a man with a head cold. Quite besides the stream of soothing ooze that flees your foggy brain through the scenic route of the nasal passage, there are a multitude of often overlooked aesthetic benefits.

When I have a cold, my eyes insist on lubricating themselves to excess, becoming itchy and watery. A fetching red blotchiness ensues, that softens the gaze and comes with an appealing tearfulness. It tells all the girls that you're that caring, sensitive guy they've been dreaming about.

A swelling and scratchiness in the throat can imbue your dulcet tones with a sexy husk, as your singing voice morphs from ugly Welsh lady-boy Aled Jones to manly god of cool Tom Waits. Coughing will work wonders here - the looser the phlegm, the more gargly the voice. And gargly just screams sex appeal.

Cough enough during the day and you'll undoubtedly start at night. An unhealthy lack of sleep will hollow out your eyes, highlighting bone structure and accessorizing those pink, tearful orbs. Blow that nose hard, long and often, and a reddish hue will soon appear. This will make it look like you've been knocking back Irish whiskey. Women love hard-drinking men.

If the coughing, sneezing and choking becomes too much, you may get quite a severe headache. That pained frown will tell all maternal man eaters that you're a tortured soul who needs saving by a good woman.

With all of this at your disposal, you'll be a killer with the ladies. Just remember guys, fresh breath is paramount! As you move in for the kill, know that there's nothing more appealing than the sweet aroma of mentho-lyptus cough sweets.

Song For The Dead

A period of furious creativity followed by an extended and deafening silence. Brilliant, mad and cheekily retro, an experiment in style where everything just went right. Near perfection, but curiously only truly loved abroad. Months without hearing a thing, but now the phenomenon-that-never-quite-was is back, and with a bang. And a whisper. And a trumpet. Yes, ladies and gents, obscurist indie band Yeti have returned with a stonking new single.

Head on over to The Tube and watch it. And may I say how lovely it is to see you all again...

Slow Hands

As Curious Quill reaches its first minor landmark of fifty posts, I thought I'd treat you to a boring and self-indulgent examination of the whys and wherefores of my writing. What blogging means to me. And why I'm determined not to succumb to the three-month itch.

When I started writing this last summer, I didn't know what I wanted it to be (note the dodgy url). I knew that I didn't want some sort of horrible online, confessional diary. Nor did I want a bland, unfiltered stream of information. I knew at least that character was important.

Cramming googlable content in would be as evil as foie gras. I didn't want to shovel meaningless traffic my way by using keywords like SEX or HOT or JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE. In fact I wasn't that bothered about building up a huge readership, as long as I had one. And as long as some proportion of that readership was anonymous to me. What was important was to have a voice, even if that voice didn't yet have anything to say.

Like most first-time bloggers, I was sucked into the usual traps. Pompous and self-important posts about how wonderful the new world of blogging was, especially now that I was here. Horrendous posts about the weather. Any old crap thrown together in an attempt to avoid the "blahgs". Posts that referenced private jokes that even the left half of my own brain wasn't in on. Too many gimmicks.

And yet, looking through all the dross I've spewed onto these virtual pages over the last eight months, I still reckon it was worth it, if just for those moments when I really had something to say, something to rage against, rant about, praise, something to laugh at or with. Something that excited to me. Some spark.

I won't make any resolutions. No promises about getting better, blogging more, breaking new ground, expanding readership, closing my mind or opening it up. No promises but one: I'm here to stay.

Long, Long, Long

I'm sitting on a train heading South. The chair is uncomfortable and creaks when I move around. In the air is a faintly stale aroma that permeates my clothes and belongings. The picture on the window makes me think of Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd.

When I look out the window, I see the suck of air from the carriages ahead fighting against a strong headwind. The sun is starting to get higher in the sky, and peers squinting through a break in the clouds.

The trees outside are starting to disappear, being gradually replaced by a vast, threatening expanse of square corners and tarmac brutality, the red bricks of the buildings by the track giving way to giant sheets of tinted glass, in which I catch the reflection of tired eyes. On the horizon ahead looms the choking smog of metropolitan isolation.

The train slows and I get off, but this is not my final destination. I'm just waiting for my next connection.

In The Cold, Cold Night

Finally get access and time enough to blog. Feel as though there is little point relating anything but the tragic story of how my simple dream of a new job and a new home fell apart. The story of why I am now living in a garden shed. The story of how I was attacked by a nine inch high canine on my quest for a toilet break.

The story plays out like this; its Monday the 5th of November, and I'm starting my new job. It's on the other side of the country to my home town, and the short notice has meant I'm staying in a basic hotel, breakfast not included. I had arrived into the town on the previous night to a cascade of fireworks for bonfire night, which somewhat alleviated the stress of carrying my own bodyweight in clothes along the two-mile hike from the train station. Somewhat.

My first day goes well. My boss is nice, as is her boss and her boss's boss. The team I'm set to work in are all friendly. I sit in a state of constant terror, natch, frozen in front of reams of text I can barely comprehend. Constant assurances are hurled at me that I'll "pick it up soon". They're probably right. Evening came and morning came; the first day.

Second day is a easier. Find out where the toilets are, strike up (albeit stilted) dialogue with who I guess I should refer to as 'my colleagues'. Crack the odd joke. No-one seems to notice; this is probably a good thing. The hotel is depressing, but I am buoyed by the fact that on Friday I will be moving into my own brand spanking new flat, furnished and lovely. Evening came and morning came; the second day.

Third day, fourth day, fifth day - all fairly similar. I'm beginning to understand how this real world thing works. Only problem being my housing plans have fallen through. So three more weeks in a hotel, oh the ecstatic joy you can imagine I felt!

To save a bit of money, I stay in a bed-and-breakfast. Unfortunately, the only room I found was in the garden shed. Bathroom facilities are in the house, it's below freezing outside (and possibly in here) and whenever I stick my head outside a troop of tiny yapping dogs go crazy for my (albeit delectable) ankles.

Epilogue
I spend three weeks in the hotel. I finally move into my flat at the start of December. It takes all of that month to get a phoneline installed (possible upcoming rant post about the hideous evil that is British Telecom call centres I hear you say?). It takes most of the next month to get a broadband line installed in my flat, and I take another six weeks off from blogging just for good measure (read: fear).

Anyway, I'm back now.

Going Missing

It has been, to say the least, a tumultous three days since last I posted here. One spent in frenzy, one spent recovering, and today spent with the weight of the future dropping once again squarely on my shoulders. And yet, in a delightful twist in the tale of fate and flat-hunting, everything has fallen neatly into place. What a pleasant surprise, especially considering the near-disaster that Wednesday was.

Three flats to look at, in three towns. The first in what has been described to me as a "sleepy little commuter town" outside London. More like "town of the dead, or those soon to be so". To say that the flat and building felt like a retirement home was not an exaggeration. I am twenty-two, and refuse to live in a flat that comes furnished with a ceramic pig, a communal garden shared with pensioners and a faint but persistent stench of stale urine.

Flat number two was a first-floor place in a building so new that not only was the carpet still shrink-wrapped, but I was informed the third and fourth floor weren't actually finished yet. Astronomically expensive but just oh-so-nice. Which didn't exactly prepare me for the third and final property.

Now, I know estate agents (or realters if you like) don't have a reputation for desperately spilling all their proverbial beans on you, so I assume when you walk into an apartment to view and your guide says "it's not gonna take long to look round" that it's going to be small. But, dear God, why? Why did anyone think that building something so tiny was a good idea?

So maybe it was small and cosy? No, why bother with that? In fact, why bother with a cupboard (in this furnished flat) when a curtain in front of a wall full of holes and with a stick jammed in there will do just as well? No need for an oven either, just this stone-age microwave that looks like it will cook anyone stood within half a mile, that'll do.

And it's really not worth re-painting the walls. Blood red and lime green is a classic combination. And the dust and filth take the edge of the headaches anyway. And to be honest, with this smell you'll probably just go outside more often, so who cares if the sofa should have an attached Hazmat sign?

You'll never guess which one I went for.

Jigsaw Falling Into Place

I've never been one for logistics. I'd rather tackle a problem with an email than a phone call, my logic being that I can collect and rationalise my thoughts better in the written word than over the telephone. Unfortunately, this choice is invariably the slower of the two, and more often than not results in being ignored.

I happily sit in limbo. Only days remain before I am to move home and start work, but through the comfort of other people's delayed actions I am immobile. I cling to a nostalgic and blind sense of entrenched normalcy, and sit in the headlights, waiting for the impact. In my life, I find more often than not that I can face any problem that hits me and find a way round it, but I'll be damned if I can ready myself before it comes.

With the right impetus, I'm lightning quick, I rush forwards, rugby tackle the headlights and bring them crashing to the ground. Throw me into a boiling pan and I will leap out. But it is my fear that, like a cold-blooded frog, unaware of the danger, I will sit content in a pool of calm as the heat builds and builds until I begin to cook.

On a more practical note, I should probably cut my hair soon.

Positive Tension

Stayed up late last night, watching the coverage of Bloc Party playing at the BBC Electric Proms. It really did look like a fantastic gig, with the unusual presence of a full choir really filling out their sound.

When their debut album, Silent Alarm, came out in 2005, it was a brilliant mix of post-punk angular guitars and abstract, heartfelt songwriting. Frontman Kele Okereke's distinctive bi-tonal voice plays off against wonderfully stinging lead guitar from Russell Lissack, all propelled by the excellent and decidedly unorthodox rhythm section of Gordon Moakes and Matt Tong on bass and drums respectively. Their second album, the hugely under-rated A Weekend In The City, pushed their sound into new directions that most indie boy bands would run screaming from, and apparently their new single has them 'going a bit New Order', which is certainly a twist.

Watching the intimate and yet epic set on my TV, I found myself achingly nostalgic for the part of my life that I fear has passed. It was only a few months ago that I would always be lining up two gigs, the rotating wheel of live music that I loved never quite stopping turning. Recently, I have lacked the desire; indeed the last live music I saw was at Glastonbury nearly six months ago.

That weekend, I missed out on my second Bloc Party gig. They clashed with someone I hadn't seen, but I think the real reason I missed them was to preserve intact the memory of seeing them in London. A perfect night, it is a memory too well formed in my mind to detail here, but needless to say that it was both intimate and enormous, and that I was close enough at points to grab a fistful of Okereke's hair (though of course I didn't).

Time to get the wheel rolling again, methinks.

Devil's Haircut

I am frequently perplexed by Russell Brand. Anyone outside the UK who is reading this is probably thinking "Who?" - so I'll explain a little.

Brand is Britain's most current comedian, and by that I mean - without passing judgement on his level of fame or ability - he is certainly the most iconic of the crop of comedians to come to prominence in recent years. Sporting ridiculously large hair, women's jeans and a permanent colour scheme of "black and more black", the sex-maniac and reformed heroine addict uses a Dickensian wit combined with a delight in controversy to great effect.

I subscribe to his (incredibly popular) BBC Radio 2 podcast, having done so since he abandoned 6Music, and usually listen to it at night, stifling the laughter that always escapes me by forcefully cramming a corner of duvet into my mouth. Over an hour of hilarious interviews and tangential rants, and featuring weekly staples such as the phonecall to Noel Gallagher, and imploring China to "get out of Tibet!", its a dizzying mix of high- and low-brow humour, with a healthy dash of left-wing politics.

Which is more than can be said of Brand's new programme on Channel 4, Ponderland. Television has never been Brand's strong suit. While Big Brother's Big Mouth was a great forum for his fiery banter, The Russell Brand Show, a sort of mutant talk show, was a disaster (witness the painfully dull interview of Matt Lucas and David Walliams of Little Britain fame).

Ponderland is even worse. With no sideman to play off, the programme is simply a monologue delivered by Brand to camera, with occasional interludes in the form of stock footage from the pre-VCR era, mostly public service announcements or cheap documentaries. Brand rambles incoherently on such sweeping subjects as "Romantic Love" and "Childhood and Adolescence", and the audience, presumably dosed up with laughing gas, or maybe just on a day trip from the lunatic asylum, roar with laughter to the most banal of puns.

There is the odd moment of genius. Brand phones his own father to ask him to grade the colour of his genitalia using a paint samples board, on the basis that "dad's have browner willies". But generally you sit there praying for Brand's sparring partner Matt Morgan to turn up, and give the entire thing a little grounding. He does not.

A true original, it remains to be seen how far into the future Brand's career will stretch. But I sincerely hope that any future forays into television comedy can capture the brilliance of Brand's unique radio work. Brand can excel in a loose format, but needs to be tethered down occasionally, or God help us all.

Moving

The reason things have been so quiet on Curious Quill recently is, in essence, I have been getting myself a career. Terrifying as it may seem to me now, I am about to join the ranks of the tax-paying, flat-renting, shop-on-Saturdays, living-for-the-weekend masses. As I alluded to in my previous - and embarrassingly abstract - post, this will involve me packing up and moving out.

The curious thing is that the stress of finding somewhere to live on the other side of the country is probably a blessing in disguise. It seems to have blanked out the sheer terror I should be feeling at being tied to the tracks, wriggling to escape the inevitable and speedy approach of a high-speed train called The Worrying Prospect of Independence.

My labels are all going to change. Sure, I've recently moved from the era-defining "Student" to the deliberately vague "Graduate" (occasionally prefixed with "Unemployed" or the more optimistic "Job-Seeking"). But to abandon these luxuriant titles in favour of the more harsh "Young Professional" is something I'm perhaps not quite ready to do.

I'm sure the following months for me will consist of an immersion into (the deep end of) my new life, and I will probably live in a constant state of backlash. Hopefully I'll not be one of those slightly embarrassing types who really have no excuse to be hanging around watching bands full of people five years younger than them. Or those who continue to go to the local art house cinema to catch the latest existential Polish crime thriller, long after it has ceased to be "trendy" to do so and is instead "unnecessarily pretentious".

Then again I've never worried about labels anyway. They never really seem to stick.

Return To Sender

Time to break the ritualistic, self-imposed leave of absence. No apologies for a lack of presence; I had better things to do, and I was busy doing them. No explanation of the what and the why, maybe those can come later, but not now.

No longer stood at the crossroads. I have chosen my path, and I prepare to take my first baby steps. Choose shoes. Find the way among the rocks and snakes. The lack of choice does not make choosing any easier, and I will have to feel my way in the dark. A new beginning maybe, and the end of an era. Exciting prospects and a freedom I have most likely never experienced before.

More than anything, I feel like I'm leaving home.