2002-05-29 - 6:07 p.m.

The days go by and the options disappear. Agencies aren�t even registering, let alone offering work, and 5 bazillion students have just entered the job market with their �marketable skills� and �knowledge� and �work ethic�. Today I was put up for a job STUFFING ENVELOPES for so little an hour it was practically paying them and I still got turned down, though to be fair, my envelope-stuffing experience is somewhat limited. I�m not up with recent developments in the field and I don�t have a wide range of industry contacts. Not the proudest moment in my working life. Or my non-working one, to be more accurate.

I also called the travel editors of every single national newspaper and they all told me there was a freeze on new commissions as they have five year�s worth of copy stockpiled (in case we ever went on strike? what the fuck?!) and I�m welcome to call back the next time Halley�s comet swings by. Another career not so much bites the dust as uses the dust to create a five-course banquet and chews each mouthful of each course with concerted effort to avoid indigestion. If I was Charles Bukowski, this impending period of poverty would be great � it would mean another novel and dirty sex with a succession of quirky trailer trash girls, but sadly I�m not, and it just means enforced debt and probably having to move to a remote wooden shack for the summer.

Monday I have to start claiming unemployment benefit.

Sex, drugs and on the dole.

I stole that.

Well, I had a good crack at things, but in the end it just wasn�t on. It almost was. But not quite. Perhaps I could take an envelope stuffing course and assimilate myself back into the job market. In six months I could be stuffing those A4 padded manila numbers with self-adhesive flaps, and then I can look myself in the eye with pride knowing at last I�m doing something worthwhile.

Well. A boy can dream, can�t he?