Easy Tonight

Is the title of a song by a band called Five for Fighting. They're essentially a one-man band, led by an American bloke with a pretty good voice and a talent for writing vocals.

A friend first introduced them during a particularly tough time for me in 2003 when I was agonosing over a girl who in several ways was perfect. Happily now, I know she wasn't the one, though you couldn't have persuaded me at the time. In a word, I was bersotted.

But back to Five for Fighting. The funny thing is, I'd always thought they sounded decent when I'd listened to their songs downloaded (illegally) from Kazaa. I quite enjoyed some of their tunes if I'm honest, but without ever becoming a confirmed, idolising fan. But then along came Spotify, which as far as I can work out, still won't allow you to download most of the Oasis catalogue. And yet, it gives you access to Five for Fighting as they should have been heard.

Look them up, especially their song 'Easy Tonight', because you might just agree.

Squash

Squash, a stupid game really, but damn fun if you stick at it, and also pretty handy for keeping your fitness levels somewhere near the benchmark known as 'acceptable' rather than 'diabolical'.

I've just joined a squash ladder in Bristol, which essentially is an ongoing competition to see who's the best, who's the worst, and who's the generally indifferent. I've never actually come across the term 'ladder' in any other sport except squash, even though it essentially is a league table with a couple of tweaks in the rules.

But that's not my real problem with the ladder. My issue is the fact that I'm the only player who lives more than 1 mile away from the squash court we play on - in fact, I live approximately 200 times further away than any other player and probably something like 100 times further away than all of them combined.

Now that's a bit of an issue, especially if I'm not as good as they are at squash - if I lose lots, and find myself at the bottom, then I'm going to have far less opportunities to climb back up. I could be forever marooned on the bottom rung, the bloke who everyone steps on to begin their journey to squash stardom (it's a bit like those poor bastard boxers who get the crap beaten out of them each fight - only difference is, they still get a pay cheque out of it).

There is a flip side though. If I play it right, select only a couple of key matches, and manage to fluke a win in them, then I could be sitting pretty on top of the ladder and be sufficiently far away never to have to play again.

And with that in mind, I'm off to find a squash court that's not 200 miles away to get some practice in...

Fatigue

The feeling of ‘being tired’ has to be one of the strangest experiences ever encountered by humans. Solving it is easy of course – find a flat surface, preferably with some sort of comfy headrest, close your eyes and switch off for eight hours.

But it’s what happens before you get the chance to do this that really interests me. Tiredness plays with your physical ability to get things done, it affects your mental ability to think and act on those thoughts, and most of all it affects your emotions, magnifying many and subduing several all at once. In short, at its worst it can transform you from your normal self into some sort of hollow, unrecognisable shell.

I experienced all three of these effects yesterday evening. It wasn’t the most tired I’ve ever been – that was after a brutal week of 18 hour days in Slough, by the end of which all senses, thoughts and actions had just sort of merged into a blurry mess (bizarrely though, it’s one of the highlights of my working life to date). But I was definitely on the verge of putting up the white flag at one stage last night, emotions everywhere and nowhere, mind scrambled by the weight of personal and professional tasks that I had to accomplish and body screaming out to just give up and ditch everything.

And it’s amazing that when you are that tired, everything just seems so much harder to do. Every little target or task like climbing a mountain, every piece of bad news no matter how trivial a brutal blow, and every emotion balancing on tip toes waiting to be triggered.

Television programmes that profile extreme physical, mental and endurance feats often provide an insight into this tiredness – the sight of grown men weeping as they arrive at the South Pole after a mammoth trek, contestants locked in a reality TV house emotionally cracking in front of millions of people, marathon runners somehow dragging something primeval out of their bodies to complete those last, agonising few miles.

And yet the amazing thing about tiredness, and its effects on you, is that they can be so easily treated and cured. And that’s why, less than 15 hours after feeling utterly broken and staring down a long, dark tunnel, I’m sat on a train to Bristol for a friend’s wedding and feeling reinvigorated. The list of problems is still exactly the same as last night, the solutions to them still not entirely clear, and the finishing line still as distant as before.

And yet all it took to lift the mood, banish the demons, and come storming out the other side was eight hours of sleep. Simply brilliant.

Treasure

Ever since I was about 13, when I took over my brother's (much larger) bedroom as he departed for the world of work, I've had a tendency to display a bizarre range of what I affectionately label 'treasured crap' on my mantelpiece, bookcase or whatever other flat surface I have handy in my bedroom.

Everyone has stuff they like to look at now and then - as humans we have a natural desire to cherish certain things which appeal for a variety of reasons, be they positive or indeed negative.

My collection has changed over the years, partly because the display area is only so big and you have to get selective, and also because a lot of the things tend to have a certain edible quality to them - small bottles of whisky tend to be a particularly favourite treasure.

But certain things in the picture above have been pretty much constant throughout the years. The Stan (from South Park) doll is one of those, although the hat on top has changed a couple of times - the current one is a gift from Peru, which (like just about all hats on this glorious little Earth) looks infinitely better on his head than mine. The Chicago Cubs ticket from a glorious afternoon at Wrigley Park in 2002 is another keeper, as is the Apollo space pen from my brother, and also the karabiner from Yoseite, which acts as a reminder of just what an amazing place it really is.

Others will come and go I suspect, though perhaps alarmingly the peeball has outlasted several far more worthy mementos (one day I swear I will finally use it, but it seems such a shame to do it solo - I want someone else to race against!) and at some point I'm really going to have to give my mate Deej his 007 shot glass back (it's only been 6 years!).

But the constant editing of the treasure shelf isn't the point that matters. It's the fantastic memories that this little collection of bizarre artifacts gives me each time I look at them - how else would you explain the fact that even now, 7 years later, I still have a security bracelet from a first year university ball, despite the fact it's now a bit mouldy, very much broken, and completely unrecognisable.

That night was actually a pretty low point in uni for me, but what it gave me going forwards, what it reminds me of still today and the strength I draw from it are exactly the reasons I have, and will always have, a shelf full of this bizarre crap within eyesight until the day I die.

Leaving

Today's an immensely sad day in my office, because two really bright, young, promising stalwarts of our company are leaving.

I'm absolutely gutted about both to be honest - between them they've not only given me a hell of a lot of laughs, but also taught me a staggering amount about the job that I do. In a nutshell, that's why you have work colleagues and friends - to accomplish those two goals. They make your life enjoyable, and they help you to advance day by day, month by month and year by year.

But now, they're leaving, which means I'll have to look elsewhere for that same inspiration. Happily my company isn't short of just such people, but that doesn't mean the loss of these two will be any easier to take.

Life moves on. Some people deal with it very well, some with it incredibly poorly. I now know which camp I'm in

Rain

Bristol, as anyone who's ever spent more two minutes in the city will know, has a bit of a problem with rain.

For five months of the year between May and September, the city is one gorgeous, sunny parade, with open stretches of grass, plentiful beer gardens and barbecues in every home. Or at least something relatively near that description anyway.

But something rather alarming tends to happen once you move outside of that corridor - it rains. And I mean it really rains. Big rain, fat rain, horizontal rain and especially that really annoying drizzly rain that soaks you slowly but surely over a period of fifteen minutes or so.

And so it was this weekend, when, after a brilliant night out celebrating birthdays, engagements and movings-in, I decided to brave the hangover and go round various houses to visit other sufferers of the night before.

Everything was going fine as we made it to house number one. The clouds were a little dark, the air a little damp, but fortune was generally favouring hungover men for the day.

I should have known better.

Leaving house number one was probably what I would pinpoint as the fatal mistake. There was no real reason to leave - it was warm, dry, it had a comfy sofa, a good friend, and best of all a series of hilarious (though surely fake) videos on YouTube of 'ping pong mastery'.

But leave we did, just as the lightest of light drizzle began. Then we began to walk and the hangover gods deserted us – light became heavy, drizzle became full-on rain, and we ploughed straight on, never looking back (ok, so we may have half looked back, but everybody would have, I mean it was really crappy rain!)

And why do this and not turn back? Simple. Because I have an insatiable appetite for making the most of my rare visits to Bristol, and with barely ninety minutes left I still had another house, as well as a walk to the train station to fit in. So on we ploughed to house number two.

Fifteen minutes later, with wet jeans, soggy underwear, and walking alongside a bloke who now more closely resembled a highland cow (at least from the forehead upwards), we arrived at house number two where there was general laughter at our predicament. This laughter was then replaced with general laughter at the predicament of the occupants of the house, who had endured a less than enjoyable morning meeting the vicar who is due to marry them one year this week – suffice to say hangovers and spiritual guidance just don’t mix.

But even with soggy boxers, a painful hangover, a run to the station and (yes, naturally) some more rain on the way, it was absolutely worth it, every second of it.

It does rain a lot, and that might well put some people off visiting or (more likely) staying for good. But I wouldn’t change it for anything or anywhere.

Verve

Damn good band The Verve, one of the best in fact. Every time I listen to Urban Hymns (and yes that’s what I’m doing now sat here on a train to Bristol) I’m reminded of just what a special record they put together, and how many instantly recognisable, longingly memorable songs are contained within it. To call two or three of those songs anything but ‘classic’ would be wrong.

Lucky Man isn’t one of those classics, even though it is a very good song. It is however the first song I ever learnt to play on a guitar. It’s brilliantly simple in fact – just three chords for the majority of the song with a bridge at the end of each verse.

I always fancied being in a band when I was younger (I suspect most teenagers and young 20-somethings do – X-Factor anyone?) as it just seemed to be quite possibly the best form of employment anyone could ever wish for. Go into a studio, thrash out a tune, play it to the world and then do it all over again.

As time advanced and my career of mega-stardom didn’t appear blissfully over the horizon (which I suspect is the sad delusion that so many of the contestants on X-Factor actually hold) I adapted to a less ambitious target. My future house was to contain a soundproofed room with four speakers, a drum kit and a very large amp. Suffice to say I’m yet to find that house, or the drum kit for that matter. Or even the speakers.

But I still think I retain enough of that youthful belief, desire and romanticism to cling to that thought. At least for a couple more years.

After that dream dies I don’t really know what the next step down will be for my musical dreams. Maybe I’ll revert back to the earlier goal of joining a band, only this time it’ll be aiming to make the grade with the local village band. But then again, the whole village life dream is another matter entirely – why is it the older you get the more the idea of a small place with one shop, one pub and one hundred houses appeals more and more?

Whatever happens though I can at least be sure of one thing – Urban Hymns will always be in my CD rack (and yes I will always have a CD rack despite what anyone says).

And now it’s Word Gets Around by the Stereophonics. The 90’s were bloody brilliant weren’t they.

Stag

Someone asked me a damn good question this weekend whilst I was up in Manchester - why are stag do's called stag do's exactly?

Sadly I failed to answer the question for two very good reasons. One, I don't actually know the answer, which proved a bit of a problem (though as certain friends of mine will know, I can generally bullshit an answer with the best of them - PR career anyone?).

And two, I was a little (for which read exceedingly, utterly and completely) drunk at the time and had more important things to focus on - like where the next round was coming from, which hideous-tasting shot it was going to consist of, and whether it was time to whip out trusty 'Mr Maestro' to pay for it again.

Even after extensive research (well, Google and Wikipedia at least) I still don't know the answer, but rest assured the quest will continue.

On the plus side, the event was brilliant, fantastic and utterly worth the trip. It might be immature (and frankly a bit strange) to say, but there really are few better feelings than waking up the morning after a huge night out with good friends, with a shocking headache, an overbearing thirst for any kind of liquid and the prayer that you avoid natural light of any kind for at least another hour.

I've always been a great believer in the hangover, because it effectively forces you indoors and onto the sofa with fellow sufferers for several hours at a time. And in that time, you tend, though feeling overwhelmingly crap, to have a genuinely brilliant time chatting, laughing, watching crap TV and eating plastic food.

So it's with a fantastic sense of anticipation that I look forward to this Saturday which will feature two birthdays, a housewarming and an engagement party all rolled into one night with my closest friends in my favourite city.

All I can say is, bring on Sunday!

Birthdays

At every stage of my life, and everywhere I've lived, there always seem to be lots of birthdays in September and October. Way more than any other time of the year.

At this point I could point to the rather obvious mathematical calculation of deducting nine(ish) months from September/October and ending up at the festive season. In that golden period between Christmas and New Year, alcohol flows and romance fleetingly returns. It's also the coldest time of year, when warmth and entertainment are at a premium. This may or may or not have something to do with it and I'll leave it at that.

But back to the birthdays thing. I've just had mine, next weekend I'm celebrating two more, and there are a stack of them in and around the office. Everyone celebrates them differently of course - ranging from what one soon to be 26 year old described as a 'classic night' (house, nibbles, wine/beer, pub, beer, bar, spirit, club, shot, shot, shot...) to those who choose to try to prove that the passing of time hasn't affected their physical abilities too much by climbing Britain's highest peak.

But the great thing is, despite the sheer number of birthdays out there, you really never get bored of going to them nor celebrating them. I mean think about it. If you have say thirty friends and attend each of their birthdays every year for thirty years that's ninety birthdays. That's being conservative to be honest, and yet still each and every one is different and entertaining in its own special way.

I suspect they get better the older you get too. Whilst it's true that the magic goes out of the whole 'turning a year older' bit fairly easily, the excuse for a good piss-up or event out of the ordinary more than makes up for that. Birthdays also become milestones in the calendar as you get older - a chance to see people that you don't see half as much as you used to or want to.

And maybe that's the most important aspect of them - the chance to see the people that matter most to you. The older you get, the harder you work, the more stuff simply gets in the way of that seemingly easy objective of spending time with those people.

So happy birthday to all fellow SeptemberOctoberites for this year and all future ones.