2001-11-05 - 5:00 p.m.

�Mother, mother, There's too many of you crying. Brother, brother, brother, There's far too many of you dying You know we've got to find a way, To bring some lovin' here today�

It�s been one of those days where you�ve woken up fifteen minutes later than you meant to and suddenly the world is all off-kilter, and it�s almost imperceptible, like someone has been into your room in the night and moved everything to the left by one inch. But it�s been like a cruel trick to punish me for lying there those extra few minutes in the warm, sleepily imagining that, say, Julianne Moore was about to burst through the door with fresh coffee, breakfast muffins and an evil smirk. From then on, I was fifteen crucial minutes late for my life.

My housemate left, the one I was supposed to give an urgent message to about a long lost friend arriving in town for 24 hours (or something � I wasn�t big on the details). I missed the bank opening and by the time I got there it looked like the last train out of Kabul, with fights breaking out and barnyard animals running rampage, so I couldn�t cash a cheque. I ditch this huge queue for a more ordered but still as lengthy one at the ticket machine in the train station. Spying one at the other end of the hall with NO queue, I see a way to reclaim my synch and I ask a passing guard if it�s working. �Yes, of course,� he cheerily tells me, and I slink out of the line, grinning at the suckers left with their miserable, queue-based existence. I�m not sure whether it was the lack of response from the buttons, the blank screen, or the fact that someone had jammed what looked like a half-eaten kebab into the money slot, but I suddenly realised that the guard was either being sarcastic, lying, or took enough hallucinogenic drugs to render a permanent state of happy delusion about the operational capabilities of his automatic ticket machines. I limply rejoined the original queue, which had in the meantime doubled in length and now consisted solely of people who seemingly had no idea how to operate the machine once they got there. I swear one of them was trying to use vegetables in a kind of one-sided, man against technology bartering process.

Missed trains. Appointments. Deadlines. Breakfast serving times at fast food restaurants. The last film I want to start referencing is �Sliding Doors�, but I�m sure my life has suddenly taken a different route, except in my case, it would be �Sliding Your Lazy Arse Out Of Bed At A Vaguely Respectable Time, You Indolent Loser�. I need to find a way back. If only there was some daily ritual that took me about 10 minutes that I could forgo, just to get me back on track.

�Father, father, We don't need to escalate, War is not the answer, For only love can conquer hate. You know you've got to find a way, To bring some understanding yeah today�

Some nagging questions.

Last night I saw �The Man Who Wasn�t There�, and it is (with the possible exception of �Together�) the tastiest film of the year. Just incredibly good. But why do the Coen Brothers release their films in the UK before they come out in the US?

In the film �Almost Famous�, how did the groupies headed by Penny Lane collectively refer to themselves?

Islam is newer than Christianity, but what did the Muslim world believe in before Islam?

How embarrassing will it be to be 55 and still living in rented accommodation?

�Aw, picket lines, picket signs, Don't punish me with brutality, Talk to me so you can see, Oh what's going on, Tell me what's going on�

Today�s soul man