It was years ago but fortunately it's still a cartoon world

Late Saturday morning. At Victoria station the wildlife have arrived. Somebody's fiance walks down the platform carrying a blow up

doll with a dick, the hen party walk behind laughing. It's a grey day as I head back to the suburbs. Kids are out

playing football on Streatham Common, their parents running with them. The basketball pitches

are empty, the streets beyond this silent. It's a good day for staying in.

People are dotted

across lonely stations as we race past.

I'm back in town for Darce's 40th birthday party. How did we get here so quick? But then looking back those days seem

a long time ago now. I meet James and Stevie for a few drinks before we go to the party at the Sun Alliance club. All the

faces are there: Darce, Doug, Sealey, Sally, Martin, Tim. It's so great to see everyone again. Sealey reminds me that he missed a lot of days of work to go to the beach with us. Bunking off

work to go to the beach. I remember one time I was at work and I told them I had to go to the opticians that afternoon

and Sealey drove into the

car park where I worked, and they all got out the car in shorts, shades and carrying beachtowels. Brilliant. What's gone wrong? I've not thrown a sickie for two years. People always tell you the last time they saw you, but I always remember it as a different time and a different place.

Fortunately I recorded the conversation myself and Mr B had before we walked into the party.

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Unexpected item in bagging area

Lunch time in Sainsbury's and things are not going well. The self-service machines are getting worse. I've had to call an assistant over every time for weeks. The machine is always claiming there's an unexpected item in bagging error. That would be a bag. It asks if you've brought your own bags. I haven't but say yes because last time I said no it told me to ask for the assistant. This time it doesn't believe me and tells me to ask for the assistant. I was lying. Then it mischarges me for the cheese which according to the label over by the cheese section is on special offer. The guy tells me I have to query it. I look to the query desk and refuse because there's a huge queue of people. If it was a cartoon they would be shaped like a huge question mark. Eventually he sends someone off to find out the price. The self-service machine says £3.29. I'm saying £2.50.

The price checker goes off to find out the real price. When he returns he's brought back a different cheese and hasn't looked up the price. I'm looking at my bag of stuff and thinking of just walking off. But my lunch is in there and I'm hungry. I get in to a conversation with the original assistant.
"These self-service machines are getting worse."
"Yes you're right," he replies eagerly. "Everytime they update them they are less reliable."
The price checker returns and the assistant asks him what the price should be.
"2.25."
I have him on side now, the query queue has gone down and he charges over there and tells the girl to put my shopping through, quickly.

Back in the dark ages, in the seventies, when you couldn't move for Osmonds, the weekly shop took place at the Spar shop round the corner, you put your order in and they delivered your shopping for you. Now you can serve yourself. That's progress for you.

Here comes the weekend. I'm heading to a 40th birthday party, some of the guys who'll be there I've not seen for nearly 20 years. I've a great picture somewhere of a load of us in the Crown, which was the main pub we went to when we were 18 - 20. I'll have to get an updated one of us all now. I'm always promising you pictures aren't I? Here's the tray I bought as a housewarming for myself when I still didn't have a place to live. Good in'it? See you soon.

Mr Coyne's confetti

The confetti, the giant red and yellow balloons, the lasers, the lead singer rolling about the audience in a giant bubble, the gong with lights around it, the dancing people in Yeti costumes, Mr Coyne singing a song on the shoulders of a man dressed as a gorilla. It can only be the Flaming Lips. The entrance is so tremendous that when they launch into ‘Race for the Prize’ you know it can’t get any better than this.

My mind was really racing with ideas about what I should really be doing with life, one concerned itself with a club called the hello club where everyone dresses up and looks really psychedelic and strange, like when you first go to a club that plays good music and you see people with bowlie haircuts and flowery shirts, and you think where did these people come from? I’ve never seen anyone this strange walking the streets. Do they only come out at night? There's no way anyone would employ these people, how do they get money? I wanted a part of that when I was a teenager going to work every morning. And that’s what I got in the 90s. I remember walking down Bold Street on a friday afternoon in 1992 with my friend Dan, and being asked where we got our sixties gear, by a couple of local lads, because they were going to a fancy dress party. I had a big pair of 22" flared blue cords on at the time. I think they thought we were going to some fancy dress do too.

It's funny, you go to a concert or a festival and when it's really magical and captivating you think I don’t want to leave but when I do the world will be different. But the band exits the stage, the roadies come out and start packing away the gear and you’re left with a stage full of confetti. You want to leave with the band, onto the next place, but for some reason you can’t. But in your head the world has changed, at least for a little while. I used to try and keep things going, by heading off to the pub, but tonight is a school night, so it’s home to bed.

Midnight Ramblers

Whatever happend to October? I've been busy my friends, looking for a new flat, searching for home, yes. On my traipsing around the streets of London I saw this Morris Traveler in Whitechapel. It took me back. We used to have this same model car in the 70s and early 80s. It had leather seats, the windows slid open across and I'm sure on cold mornings my Dad used to have to start it by turning a starting handle somewhere in the front of the car. I like Whitechapel, it's got a feel of a London from a different age about it, maybe the 20s. Let's go back to last month though.

Friday 23rd October.

I've found a new flat, I've got the keys and I'm off for a celebration meal, although I'm not quite ready to celebrate. My stuff is still in the old flat, I've a million things to organise and I want to be out of there. I want my landlady out my life forever. Her refusal to answer the phone but her insistence on leaving weird notes are disturbing me. And let's face it, anyone who writes a list of all the things in her kitchen cupboard and what to do with them e.g. drinking chocolate - for night time and when it's cold - yes seriously - needs medical attention.

Everybody else seems ready to celebrate though. The guy from the greengrocer's is outside the shop and talking on his mobile enthusiastically about the evening ahead. On the packed tube, a guy in dogtooth trousers still finds the room to demonstrate a dance to his girlfriend, guiding his movements with the pole.

We manage one car load of stuff on Friday night, but it's late by the time we get to the new place. We decide we are the midnight movers.

Sunday 25th

The midnight movers thing is proving right, despite getting to the old flat early on Saturday, it's late when we leave. We drive, my stuff in the back of the car, through the packed streets of Camden, the kids are out enjoying their saturday night. All that's left in the flat is the big furniture.

On Sunday we're in Tesco, picking up things I need to set up my new home; a silver kettle, cleaning products, quilted toilet paper - you know the score. In a way it was Tesco's where it all started. I'd handed my notice in on the flat saying there was no way I was re-signing the contract and we'd gone to the cinema to see 'Away we go' (30ish couple expecting their first baby, travel across America to search for a place to bring the baby up). Afterwards we went to Tesco's to stock up on food. I was feeling homelss but it was exciting.

Thursday 29th

I get the last of the stuff out on Monday with the help of a man in a van. It takes no time at all. I like hiring both, because then you don't have to waste time collecting and returning the van. Steve helps us at the other end, complete with a new pair of orange gloves. I finally arrange to return the keys and get my deposit back on Thursday, and it's a massive relief to have the cheque in my hand and be walking away from that flat for good. Time for a new start.

Now

I'm finally here, a foxhole of my own, a new nest, a home for my tray. I'm loving my new flat. I like the view from the kitchen that looks across to the church spire peeping up over the houses. I don't know which church it is, or which area it's in. I shall go exploring soon, wander through the autumn streets and find out which church it is. It's so good to have a place of my own again. It needs some work but it's well on the way.

It's strange when you pack all your stuff up, because you look at all your possessions in boxes and think, where did all this rubbish come from? Any evenings in have been spent sorting through stuff. The shredder's overwhelmed with work. I need to take stuff to the charity shop, get some stuff on ebay. I need to spend some time nesting.

Monday night after the fantastic Daniel Johnston gig at the Union Chapel, we wandered back through the streets and spied a nice office chair left in the street. It's midnight but there's a guy in the garden and he tells us we're welcome to take the chair, as he's having a clear out. This midnight thing is catching. We part wheel it, part carry it through the empty streets.

This chair is going to like its new home. I can recommend it.