January 6 (Thursday): The Theory Of Eternal Dating. Up at seven again and up with a headache again, right now life seems to be one long big headache.

I was early morning TV to bring round into consciousness and Channel Four appear to be showing those Uncle Ben adverts again, the ones that feature Hesh from the Sopranos. I bet he is not at all embarrassed by them.

As I get my stuff together, to go home to visit the parents before the move homes, I find myself falling into the unemployed Chav trap of catching a glimpse of Trisha and being captivated. Today some crazy Scottish (not unlike certain other Scotsmen I have met before) goes bollo whilst arguing over the visitation rights of his child while also accusing the madman of harassing her as he accuses her of cheating. And then the drippy crowd chips in with its opinion. As the say goes, arseholes are like opinions, everybody gotta have one. Is this where my life is heading?

Sara decides to MSN again but I’m not interested today. She sounds concerned, almost genuine but you cannot trust such a person. “You can turn your back on a person but never turn your back on……”. When I get my money back, I’ll be Mr Happy for her once again.

Eventually I manage to get out of the flat and I head over to Asda where I find my heart in my mouth as I check my bank balance at the ATM to find it will not allow me to take any money out. Ouch, I must be hovering on the overdraft limit although the balance shows I haven’t quite gone over it (yet). I get £200 out on a credit card and do my thing inside Asda. I pick up today’s Sun and on the cover is an uproar over the Jerry Springer Opera. Will that hell night ever stop haunting and tormenting me? And as a bonus addition, the performance of the show that the BBC are showing Saturday was the performance I wasted money on the tickets for. Sucker.

Done here, I know find myself having to rush return home to collect a cheque and/or paying in book in order to go bank some credit card cash into my bank account just to stay afloat. I decide to do this in Clacton, I feel I’ve had enough of Colchester for one day.

When I get to Clacton, I quickly bank £190 and I get evil looks, it really must appear I am laundering money as this is the second time I have banked such a cash amount here in a few days. Today is a brisk but beautiful day in Clacton. People here today seem friendlier as opposed to my other recent visits here. Of course the cheery folks are the elder ones, today doesn’t seem so chav central that the place usually looks like (although poor old Clacton I fear may be too poor for even Chavs). As I return to my car in the car park, a girl walks out of a solicitors and she smiles me. I think she is laughing at me (my beard?) and I scowl but she was probably just being nice. Oh man, I’m becoming paranoid.

Upon arriving at my parents home, I discover mum and dad sat in the front watching bad daytime TV, with mum still looking really rough. I myself don’t feel great either but not to such degrees it seems. Dad gives me a strip of his Codamol painkillers and I have a horrible feeling that I may be getting addicted to these. Maybe.

Today I’m feeling down and unemployable again and this couples with guilt about me making my family worry and in the process fall ill.

Dad has been complaining for days that Sky is broken but the other day it only appeared to be on the fritz, like the dish had been banged/knocked slightly. However, he has been fucking about with things (the Sky, TV, video and DVD) and when I look at it, it is all in a complete mess. When I attempt to switch the Sky box on the lights flicker and zip rapidly like something out of Close Encounters. OK, the Sky is now officially broken but it appears the old man was the one that did the damage. Lucky they won’t still be leaving her next week so they don’t have to worry/bother about getting it mended.

I get on with doing my thing on their PC and using their scanner only breaking for dinner and to watch The Simpsons. While watching The Simpsons (Burns giving Homer an out of court settlement for his apparent low sperm count) it suddenly occurs to me that I have learned so many life skills from The Simpsons that it is probably the most education TV show ever.

The evening sees me twice suffering from the squirts and I begin to wonder if my parents are trying to poison me. Kind of upsetting after the codamol pills did such a good job on clearing my headache.

Tonight is the start of Celebrity Big Brother, something I didn’t even realise was starting. I stand watching it in the kitchen with my parents and when Bez comes on, the generation gap has never felt so ample and funny. Dad just stares at him going “what the fuck?” while mum laughs at his pratfalls and general shenanigans unaware that he is just that way from being wrecked by drugs. Shaun Ryder makes an appearance in his skit/spiel and once more the bloke only manages to look more like Bernard Manning by the day.

Of the celebrities in the house this year, Lisa I’Anson is the coolest. I have always fancied the pants/arse off her and now she just resembles someone I knew. Otherwise though, there looks like there is no one there of any real interest.

At 10PM, Channel Four shows a programme called Jump Britain which features a bunch of muscled dickheads jumping like ponces onto and around various landmarks in the country in the name of “Pakour”. The team is obviously led by a French man as he makes claims that this is the new extreme sport, that people are suggesting will rival skateboarding. It is pretty offensively stupid to watch.

I fall asleep on my parent’s sofa with a pea under my mattress it feels.

np: PJ Harvey - Dress