January 13 (Thursday): Junior Kickstart. I awaken at my parent’s house, on the sofa, following a relatively good night’s sleep for being draped over the settee all night. I’m up around 8.30AM, which means that mum has already left for work by the time I’m moving.

Spirits are high this morning, not least for seeing Bob Odenkirk guest in Everybody Loves Raymond. I know who he is while the majority of people won’t really know (or care) who he actually is but still it’s a pleasant little in joke I have between me, myself and I.

I’m still lounging when my mobile phone rings early. It is a number I do not recognise and upon receipt of the call, it is yet another employment agency asking me about myself. This agency turns out to be one I almost had dealings with last year, applying to jobs via their website to zero response. Therefore I am rather blasé about arranging a meeting with them. Still, I go for it and a date is set for tomorrow at 1PM in Chelmsford. Anything that gets me out of the house has to be a good thing. And a step back into the professional world should surely mark a return for me to reality and mean my shaving my “beard” off. We’ll see.

Eventually I get up and running and into writing and scanning on my parents’ computer. I have plenty to do today and tonight is my return to the English class, which I am really excited about actually, especially being that I actually did my homework and enjoyed the book in the process.

My morning gets disrupted by another phonecall when a woman from the booking agency for the Johnny Vegas Show asks if I would be interested in audience participation in the show. I reply “I don’t think that would be wise”. Apparently the tickets are in the post.

Checking on the internet, I find out today that Dave Bassett has joined the Millwall coaching team. What? Gut reaction is that this is not that great.

At 12.30, the last St Trinian’s film of the week comes on and it is The Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery. This is the first colour St Trinian’s movie and the first I actually manage to sit all the way through this week, really enjoying it in the process actually. This movie starred still starred George Cole but now Frankie Howerd came aboard and along with him came Reg Varney from On The Buses. None of the school staff or kids were famous by Terry Scott and Arthur Mullard do turns in the film too. The films ends with an insane train scene where the bank robbers (Howerd’s crew) find themselves first chased, then chasing up and down train tracks, in times like these it all looks insane. And it very entertaining.

During the movie, Dad pops out and once the film ends, I quickly pop out to get a newspaper to see today’s news stories on the sacked blogger. When I get home and flick through The Guardian, there does not appear to be anything (although I don’t look through it thoroughly).

Almost immediately after I get back in, mum gets home and she’s stressing over something to do with the building society, their mortgage and their house moving. As soon as she gets in, she goes out. And I’m not made to feel welcome still being around. Not long after she goes, Dad gets back and not long after, my aunt Sue turns up, who I briefly talk to but I’m really busy doing stuff.

Kindly mum sorts out dinner early so that I can indulge before leaving at 5.30 in order to guarantee that I get to my English class in good time (without having to rush and crash my car). Today, amongst the old rubbish that I am having to drag from my parents’ house back to my flat is a boxed Atari 2600, which probably doesn’t work, surely a games console with wood panelling has to suffering some kind of dry rot/wood worm over the course of twenty years.

On time, I head out to English class really excited about returning. As I enter the college, I see one of the other students (a very attractive other student) and she makes comment about my “beard” saying “its quite sexual actually”. You shouldn’t say things like that to me. I step into the group and its all pretty nonchalant and blasé. Teacher also comments my “rough look” before saying “dare I ask?” and it doesn’t even register with me that she is enquiring about my work situation. I’m lost for words. The class begins and I get smart arse remarks in my direction from the teacher which I’m not really in the mood for today. Unintentionally, I can feel my face of thunder, I’m lacking a sense of humour tonight and I feel the questioning I am receiving only serves to make me look stupid as my face goes red with each remark.

We tear into the book and it turns out that my perception of it varies/differs greatly from the rest of the class. And this really bothers me, makes me feel like I didn’t read the book closely or more that I didn’t read it properly. When I dare consider that the step father (but real father) having sex with the main character was not actually rape but consensual it occurs to me that I have probably got Lolita too much on the brain. And this bothers me. Then again, why would the wife being aiming her gun at the daughter and not the father?

Fortunately we get a breather when the fire alarms go off. We casually go downstairs and out the building where we are met by the crazing centre manager going “this is not a drill”. No, she appears to be holding some kind of torch. I actually used to work at this centre and I know/knew/remember the woman from 1993, scarily nearly 12 years ago now. I’m sure she does not remember me though while I still remember that the caretaker used to call/refer to her as “bum lips”.

We stand outside in the cold and I talk and rip the piss with Emma. Fire engines turn up but there doesn’t appear to be a real fire really. Around us, several groups of handicapped people have also been dragged outside in the cold and they begin to get distressed and start crying. I find myself more concerned just with my books getting burned.

We return to the class and the teacher looks really pissed off and phased when we get back. We launch into further analysis of the book and I don’t chip in while all around put in their ten cents (sense), only confirming further how different (wrong?) my interpretation of the book was to theirs. We begin some really analyse of the first six pages of the book, really looking into the piece in depth to a point I have never applied before. It all serves to make me really feel like some kind of hack writer.

Eventually I am put out of my misery and the class ends (thankfully). As I leave I tell teacher that “I probably be here next week” which probably sounded more sinister than the fact that I will just be in hospital having horrible work done on horrible parts.

Getting home, I watch the remainder of Celebrity Big Brother and Jackie Stallone gets funnier by the day but also less popular with it. She is a freak and yet makes just as much sense in that house as anyone else.

Finally tonight Channel Four shows some drama called Yasmin about a young Muslim lady living in England in the aftermath of Sept 11. It’s a pretty horrific programme and not really strictly how my experiences of Muslims have led me to believe that that is the way it is for Muslims (one of the Muslim characters is perceived/performed as almost feral). Its pretty depressing stuff to watch and I fall asleep before the end, before I predict whitey is revealed as the ultimate bad guy. It gives me bad dreams.

np: The Jesus Lizard - Boilermaker