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10 March 2002 (Day 176)

Picked up an old, small book on Camus, first published four years after his death. Never dwelled on the date of his death before, but today pondered over the fact that he died two days after my mother's birthday.

9 March 2002 (Day 175)

Charlotte and I found a new place to live. Leaving here is finally sinking in.

Uncomfortable for a second. That moment, walking, when you're set to overtake someone and you arrive just behind their shoulder and they turn around to stare as if you're about to attack them.

8 March 2002 (Day 174)

More than a week crammed into one single upload. The last eight days have been busy and tiring. Everything that sits on this page is old, about to slip from my mind. Most of it is dull. I recall dropping my cash card through a crack in the supermarket checkout on Monday, bringing that lane to a standstill, culminating with the closing of the checkout and three staff working the skinniest of arms into the gap between desk and machinery. I got my card back. Today I read yesterday's newspapers: Robert Fisk's column concerning America's wayward morality post-11 September and Natasha Walter's column probing the political tensions being stirred by Arundhati Roy in India. These things held my interest. They're catalytic and they shape the way I think, but perhaps it is tiredness that prevents me from writing anything more inspiring than this. Perhaps it is tiredness that grants me only the shallow echo of someone else's words tonight.

7 March 2002 (Day 173)

A cartoon on the front page of The Times today depicted a Zimbabwean voter gazing over his ballot paper. Printed on the paper were two check-boxes: next to one the word 'Mugabe'; next to the other, 'I would like my village burned to the ground'.

6 March 2002 (Day 172)

In the high street today a young boy and girl were crouched down over a heap of copper coins. A torn carrier bag lay flattened underneath the pile. The hands of the children were busy scoopoing the coins into various pockets and pulling them in from where they had spilt away from the pile. A woman was bent down in the road, helping to pick odd coins from out of the gutter, tossing them into the pile.

5 March 2002 (Day 171)

When entered daily, these items tend to vary or jar. In entering these items in one posthumous eight-day block though, unintentional patterns begin to form. In this fashion they tend to ebb and repeat. This note was among some jottings that I made at work today:

My life just needs to be okay. For as long as it is I'll go on. The lies that other people live by and advocate are not enough to make me want to stop.

4 March 2002 (Day 170)

Found some more scribbled notes from yesterday. Notes about destroying the unfamiliar. It related to a piece I was thinking through about writing about music. What you destroy – what you take away – when you write about music, is that shock of the new: that allure of the unfamiliar. With each further play – each further effort to listen, attach and understand – we lose something of the essence of the music's initial appeal. That was the extent of the notes.

3 March 2002 (Day 169)

A note from today:

Moments when pure, wrecking thoughts arrive:
Being downwind from a shitting dog. Tapping a finger against a street bollard as you walk past it. Looking into the empty space in front of an object and being aware that it is not the object that you are staring at.

2 March 2002 (Day 168)

I went into the office and tried to work and largely failed.

1 March 2002 (Day 167)

There was an elderly man stood before me in the queue at Sainsbury's today. He was dirty: his overcoat was filthy, soiled with all manner of spills and stains. His face was dirty, like the face of a coal miner. Across his body, though, he wore a smart, feminine, brushed-suede handbag. He opened the clasp, revealed a neat little compact mirror on the underside of the flap and pulled a twenty-pound note from out of one of its compartments, with which to pay the cashier. His hands, his fingernails, too, were caked with dirt. He made me very happy for a few minutes.

28 February 2002 (Day 166)

Such peculiar things today wore down my spirits. On the way to work, the sun bouncing off the wet tarmac and blinding me. Then, later, indoors: a man wearing sunglasses, despite the rain through the window and only the soft swathe of the store's artificial light. I wished some great embarrassment upon him. Outside, a woman cutting across my path shouting, 'hurry, let's cross over here' to her excitable friend. Later still, I dwelled on how much I disliked punctuality. Then, three memorable moments... that saved me. The first: watching a postage stamp cut clean through the water in the kitchen sink. I was loosening it from the square of envelope that it was still stuck to, to use again, once separate and dry. I had expected it to float; instead, it just knifed through the water and helicoptered down to the sink floor. The second: walking past a humming electric power station. The third: watching a DIY makeover on television and nearly crying at a boy, who was crying at his mother, who was crying, after the new family kitchen had been unveiled.

27 February 2002 (Day 165)

A groin strain from football. A mountain of work to get through. I have apologies owing to people. Sincere and kind words have worked their way into my head and I want to distribute them, but I'm repelled by the ugliness of the phone and I don't recognise the letters imprinted on these keys, when it comes to writing something that will reduce the weight of this sadness. I get back at 10:00 but the night feels dead and my laziness defeats me.

What is difficult about writing is that I need to work through a process of complicating the simple before I can see how much more elegant and effective the simple is. As much is true in life. We strive for more from our lives; so much so that we overlook the beauty of what we are seeing – what we are getting – and we are left wanting. Retrospection so often reveals to us how very simply we can choose and live our lives; how very crass our mistakes were and how very full and rich we are. If only we could acquiesce to lead our lives rationally and contentedly, as though prescient of what were to come, in the same way that we acquiesce once that day in life has passed.

26 February 2002 (Day 164)

I've been picture-researching and typesetting a biography of Quentin Crisp at work for the last week or so. I had no idea that this man was so intelligent and thoughtful; I knew only that he was eloquent and witty. His words then, lately, have affected me more than anyone else's. I'm looking forward to reading through his work properly soon. Until then, I have the biography (soon to be published by our house, authored by Tim Fountain) and I also have snippets from the memorial booklet, put together shortly after his death, from which this was taken:

'If I regard what I think is human, and perhaps I was asked because I was not a human being and, therefore, have a detached view on the subject, I would say it was a preoccupation with the idea of death.'

'When I was younger and was not ill, I didn't mind how long I lived. Now that every step of my life is painful, I long for death. If being human has any other special aspect then it is that in every human being there are two people. One who sits in judgment on the other. The worldly, the doing person, acts irresponsibly, or nobly, or wisely, or foolishly, according to the mood or the situation. But inside him, further away, is an abstract spiritual being who never changes and who sits in judgment on him.

This situation becomes evident when we hear people say, 'I was ashamed of myself.' Who is ashamed of whom? It is this duality between the active living organism and the contemplative inner-self that sits in judgment that constitutes the whole human being. This is, I think, what constitutes a human being.'

25 February 2002 (Day 163)

Spoke to my twin brother for the first time in weeks. He and his friend were beaten as they climbed into a taxi. He received lumps and bruises to his head. His friend received the same, plus a cut to his nose. They were taken to the police station where their injuries were photographed.

Police arrived quickly – quick enough to pull the attackers off them. Their attackers gave statements and were charged. They withdrew these statements two weeks later and now they admit to nothing.

Pete and his friend are disinclined to press charges.

24 February 2002 (Day 162)

Awoke early this morning. I looked for the time and recalled having done the same thing last night, just prior to falling asleep.

23 February 2002 (Day 161)

Tonight we talked about the most beautiful thing that we had ever seen.

A car impacting with a pedestrian. The pedestrian tossed into the air, and landing, head exploding on the ground. It's now been imprinted on my mind for years. At the time they put me in a taxi, with the girlfriend that I'd recently split up with. She escorted me to the hospital, where I then spoke my first words, first to a nurse, then to a policeman. We left a few minutes later and sat on a bench in the park and stayed there for half an hour or so. I think she gave me a present that she'd bought for me on holiday and I think that it remained on the bench when we left the park behind. I realised, sitting on that bench, how beautiful everything that had been left behind was. There were the easy metaphors of sun in the sky and girlfriend returned to my side, but I saw beauty wherever I looked. I loved the sadness left by our split from each other. I was thinking ahead to telling my mother that I loved her. I remember savouring the dampness of the bench. Moments like that don't come often: we couldn't bear them often. The sheer horror and tragedy of that day was so intensely beautiful. I hope it never fades from memory.

22 February 2002 (Day 160)

A remark in Jonathan Franzen's essay, 'Perchance To Dream: In The Age of Images, A Reason To Write Novels': 'If you're a novelist and even you don't feel like reading, how can you expect anybody else to read your books?' Contrarily, if I spend my time reading, how do I find the time to write? Time flees from me every day. It's distressing.

21 February 2002 (Day 159)

'Your trouble is simply a sort of lethargy of the spirit. You are simply asleep, and you're asleep not from any surfeit or exhaustion, but from lack of vivid impressions and sensations.' Gogol, Dead Souls

This morning, just as I start to work one of the socks that I'd taken off last night back onto my foot, I lie back on the bed, paralysed and lonely, crippled by the confusion of what I am to do next. These moments are like bolts that punch and don't bruise. Gogol comes back to me, and also a walk into school with my twin brother that saved us our bus fares and spared money for lunch. They take their toll on me.

Tonight again, watching nothing on television bar a million dancing blue, red and green squares, sadness tucks in around me like a heavy, coarse blanket.

20 February 2002 (Day 158)

Though somewhat bereft of respectability these days, this week's NME carried an interview with Boards of Canada. An insightful discussion of their work included mention of how they liked the idea of 'regression' with their new album, Geogaddi. They wanted to produce something that convinced it was conceived and made before previous album Music Has the Right to Children. It was an idea that charmed me.

19 February 2002 (Day 157)

The uglier things in life are those that have been created by men searching for beauty. People miss out truth. People want beauty before truth. How can we hold out for anything more prescious than the truth? Only truth is – surely, can be – beautiful.

18 February 2002 (Day 156)

I spent time updating various sites and put some thought towards writing for another location. 'Fragments' is the working title I've devised for this section that will be posted elsewhere.

I was shouted at on the way home, by a drunkard, eager for me to turn around. In contrast, on my way into work this morning, a black cat brushed against my legs, one that I used to pass every morning without fail, but that I hadn't seen in a long time. He looked much fatter. I was happy to renew our acquaintance.

17 February 2002 (Day 155)

'When we say of somebody that he is boring, it is ourselves we criticise because we have not made ourselves into that wide-open vessel into which people can pour their entire lives. Nothing is boring except a lie.' Quentin Crisp

16 February 2002 (Day 154)

Went into the city, hoping to buy the new Boards of Canada album a couple of days before the official release date, only to find that the independent store I buy from is no more. Dissatisfied. I read about Iraq's plans for hosting the 2012 Olympics and the farcical goings-on at the Department of Transport and that is almost the sum total of Saturday. Only late into the evening do I read fifty pages of my book and talk with a friend and it feels as though some small part of the day has been rescued. All day long I've been singing the opening line of Papa M's Whatever, Mortal album: 'I am a whore...'

15 February 2002 (Day 153)

Charlotte is back from Cornwall. I'm more than a little lost without her around me. I've come to dislike sleeping alone. The other beautiful thing that came to me today was a flyer for the new Spiritualized single.

14 February 2002 (Day 152)

My frustration is mounting and I know that tiredness is playing its part. Today is one long yawn. The few words that invigorate me slightly today are from Pinter's commentary on Beckett: 'the more he grinds my nose in the shit, the more I am grateful to him'. Someone else has placed Beckett back in my mind, but I am always happy to have him there.

13 February 2002 (Day 151)

I can't seem to settle myself with anything at present. When I sit down to write, I stare blankly at the screen and become frustrated quickly. I give my time over to tidying the flat. I grasp words and sentences from passages I read and hope that they might lead me towards something, but I'm way off. Tonight I spend time with a few friends and it helps me shift a little.

12 February 2002 (Day 150)

Watched the BBC adaption of Crime and Punishment and then switched channels, returning a few minutes later to see the deadpan stares of Milosevic as the war crimes tribunal in The Hague got underway.

11 February 2002 (Day 149)

Today I stood watching the window. Not looking out of it, not initially at least, but just looking at it. So many things to do, but just stood there, wasting time, watching the window.

10 February 2002 (Day 148)

'Sorry to take the piss mate. I need some change to ge' me into the shelter'. I gave this homeless nothing. I had little to give and I gave him nothing. I simply headed for the steps that led from the platform to the station's recpetion. When I returned, I fell asleep and it was still daytime. When I awoke, the night was in all around me and I was angry that the day had gone.

9 February 2002 (Day 147)

In my head I started to write a passage. 'Nothing works' were the words that I was thinking of.

This was whilst I was waiting for a train. Trying in vain to read the book I had with me, my mind would not let go of the phrase 'nothing works'. This was whilst I was sat on a bench, on Platform 7, waiting for a train that was eleven minutes late.

8 February 2002 (Day 146)

Today was long and difficult. At lunch, I walked home from work as slowly as I ever have done, thinking. I felt alone and sad in a way I haven't done for a while. As I walked, I could hear a tiny scrape, emanating from the ground. I stopped, took my weight on one leg and examined the underside of my shoe, expecting to find a leaf or paper wrapper caught between the ridges of the patterned grip, but there was nothing.

7 February 2002 (Day 145)

Yesterday and today brought me two words – their definitions and examples of usage – from a dictionary website subscription. Today's word was apogee, but it was yesterday's – sinecure – which I found particularly appealing.

6 February 2002 (Day 144)

Time and again, I become convinced that I need to share more with people. Words, thoughts and ideas, simple acts of kindness. This realisation comes from an obvious place: a joy of experiencing these things when other people make them available to me.

A message from someone today, where like-thoughts rebounded between the forms of our correspondence. A phrase from Samuel Beckett – 'I can't go on... I'll go on' – is a beautiful interpretation of the impasse, the struggle: life, in all its sheer contradictory glory. We share a desire to complete or achieve something and we share a dissatisfaction with what we have so far done. Furthermore, I aim to achieve, only half-sure of what I understand this achievement to be, and still less sure that failiure is its polar opposite.

'I can't go on... I'll go on.'

5 February 2002 (Day 143)

To believe the contents of my 'in-box' is to believe that a team of scientists from the Forensics Department at University College London carried out analysis into cleanliness of a row of seats on a London Underground Central Line tube carriage. A breakdown of what was found on the surface of the seats ran as follows: 4 types of hair sample (human, mouse, rat, dog); 7 types of insect (mostly fleas, most of them alive); vomit, that had originated from at least 9 different people; urine, originating from at least 4 separate people; human excrement; rodent excrement; human semen.

I also read somewhere that if you wear clean underwear only two or three days after washing it, genital bacteria and lice are still likely to be lurking: they haven't had chance to die.

4 February 2002 (Day 142)

Touch-tone pressing my way through to the right department, I get there and am asked to wait in a queue, assured that my call will be dealt with shortly. I wait for the muzak; 'Greensleeves' perhaps, or some shuttled synth melody. I almost smiled with happiness when 'Smokebelch II', by Sabres of Paradise, started up.

3 February 2002 (Day 141)

I tore a fax from the machine: 'Lose 10lbs without even trying. Do you want pain-free weight loss?' That's all I read. I threw it onto the desk, despite knowing that I didn't want to keep it for any reason and that my aim should really have been directed at the bin. It scrolled up on the desktop – the same way spiders scrunch up when prodded with a finger – so as the bold-tye of 'without even trying' stood out on top. I read a bit more then tossed it into the bin.

2 February 2002 (Day 140)

020202 runs today's truncated date, terrifyingly infinite in its repetition.

1 February 2002 (Day 139)

I walked home, and passing through the car park the 'plastic bag' scene from American Beauty was replaying all around me. It was as though someone had air-dropped two or three score of them from overhead. Litter blew everywhere. It amused me, dodging one of them and watching the others dance and whirl around on the relentless wind.

31 January 2002 (Day 138)

'An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.' Charles Bukowski

30 January 2002 (Day 137)

Spent a long time sifting through the words and images of many other sites. Some surprised and intrigued me, others bored me. I must have read a few thousand words. The whole thing depressed me after a couple of hours.

I liked this line from a friend's mail to me: 'today is a new day and she is still there and I'm just here....' I liked the efficacy of the word 'just'; some poetic existential quality to it.

The clouds had a pink underbelly to them as I dropped the blinds at the office.

29 January 2002 (Day 136)

This man wears tan-coloured corduroy trousers. His hands are in his pockets and he stares at the exposed legs of the girl standing in front of him in the queue for the cigarette counter. He's obvious and deliberate with his stare. I notice the girl's legs because I follow the man's gaze. Had his gaze been aimed at the ceiling, I would have followed it; found the object of his interest. My gaze would be dictated by his. I'm interested in him for these few seconds, then in the legs of the girl and then back to him. His otherness; his strangeness appeals... momentarily. This elderly man, here, in front of me – accepts his change, replies 'much obliged' and turns and links arms with this woman in paisley headscarf.

These three fruiterer's cardboard crates, red and white in colour, have sailed down the river. For this moment they are stuck at some watery impasse.

28 January 2002 (Day 135)

It rained and then it hailed. The hail stones were big. They fell fast and beat against the umbrella with an almighty beat. My legs had a swathe of wet denim wrapped tightly around them; stiff, toiling against the wind. I passed a drainpipe spewing stones out onto the top of a blocked drain covering, looking like a thousand tiny foam balls. I enjoyed the cold, wet struggle of it all. Now, sunlight filters through the windows, and in the bathroom, towards the back of the flat, the white walls reflect the outside light with astonishing brilliance.

Later, I watched someone shoplifting two cans of dog food from the Co-op.

27 January 2002 (Day 134)

Listened to Papa M. Sat down, tried to write. Pushed the space bar and hit the delete key in repetition and watched the cursor move left and right across the screen.

26 January 2002 (Day 133)

I've learnt little this week; read nothing and watched nothing. Spoke with a few people, but exchanged little of value; of any novelty. The mind stays active, inventive, but after a while needs stimulus; more than the chance slight details of the day.