2001-12-16 - 9:40 p.m.

�Smoke�lingers round your fingers�Train�heave on to Euston�do you think you�ve made the right decision this time?�

I�m happy to cope with most of the regrettable side effects that go along with getting really drunk all the time. The debilitating cost, the ill-advised conversations with people you love or hate, the dancing to the Bee Gees, the waking up with scant memory but a vague impression that you�ve ruined another potential romance / friendship / drug-fuelled romp around my futon involving little in the way of clothing. That�s all good. I�m fine with all that.

But I just wish that my decision making faculties, such as they are, would remain relatively intact. The last three nights, for instance, I�ve called someone �management scum� in a far less jokey way than I�d really planned to and thrown a cork at a friend�s (sorry, you) undeserving head. Then last night I for some reason thought that taking a forty-five minute taxi ride at 2am to the complete opposite side of the city was the best idea I�d had since the time I thought of trimming my pubic hair with the electric clippers resulting in a series of intimate nicks and a bruised toe. All for just one more glass of wine and a chance to render an unfortunate female resolutely unimpressed. As my hosts vanish to their bedrooms, I�m left cursing the fact I couldn�t just get on a nightbus like a normal person. I suppose we should call it karma for the cork incident.

�You�ve left your tired family grieving, and you think they�re sad because you�re leaving, but did you see the jealousy in the eyes of the ones who had to stay behind? And do you think you�ve made the right decision this time?�

My New Year�s resolution is definitely to stop waking up on other people�s couches. This year I mean it. Especially weird parts of South London. I woke up, foraged for breakfast (fizzy water and a bag of Cheesy Wotsits � the breakfast of chumpions), got my friend to mumble directions to the nearest station (overland of course � we�re way out of tube territory) from the annoying comfort of his bed and set off on my merry way. It takes me ten minutes to negotiate the doorstep, as I�m stopped on it by a man with a clipboard who needs to take details of some utility or other and won�t believe I�m not a resident, though I�m not sure why anyone would lie about not knowing where electricity meters are.

Of course, I get lost within seconds of turning off their street and I seem to be in some kind of weird village populated solely by people in jogging suits begging their pram-bound mewling cabbages to do be quiet because mummy�s feeling very tired. Well, aren�t we all, frankly? I duck down a likely looking avenue and am glad to discover that my ability to locate dead-ends is reassuringly unwavering. The rain is driving the psycho parents indoors, and the only person left to get directions from is a wizened, toothless old crone of indeterminate gender that greets me with a cheery �Good morning� but then spends a fair amount of bemusing minutes trying to cajole their dog into doing the same thing. After a predictable lack of success, I�m given directions, but as this character is obviously as mad as a badger, I�m none too confident. Thankfully, though, they turn out to be kosher and a mere two hours later, I�m collapsing onto my bed and vowing to make some fundamental changes in my life.

I�m never leaving the house again, of course.

�You left�your girlfriend on the platform�with this really ragged notion that you�ll return�but she knows�that when he goes�he really goes�So do you think you�ve made the right decision this time?�

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