2003-06-26 - 5:12 p.m.

I went out with the express intention of getting drunk last night, an occasional task I set myself and, it has to be noted for the record, rarely fail in. The cause for celebration was that I sold my first feature to a noted London-only evening newspaper, to be subsequently read by thousands of weary commuters on the tube this very Friday night.

Some hours, three bottles of mediocre chardonnay in a ponced up wine bar and a robust helping of smoked cheddar later, I was wending my wobbly way to the nightbus, more than satisfied at the not inconsiderable aplomb with which I�d applied myself to the challenge at hand.

OK, I�m not saying that I was a model of good behaviour on the way home, and perhaps the guy reading the Hazza Potter book didn�t deserve quite so vehement a tirade of abuse, but sit on public transport with your head buried in a kiddy�s book and you have to expect a certain degree of ridicule, it�s safe to say. Ideally, that ridicule should not be delivered from a slurring wino, but since no-one else looked like stepping up to the plate, I felt a moral obligation. Some are born obnoxious, some achieve it, and others have obnoxiousness thrust upon them.

Lucky for me, the kind of people that read Harry Pott-ah aren�t the kind of people who start fights on night buses, even the ones who buy the versions with the �adult� artwork. Uh, you can put my Tellytubbies video in a Peter Greenaway case � it don�t make it an intellectually challenging arthouse classic, you know? Anyway, he may have claimed the moral high ground by earnestly ignoring me, but I felt my fellow passengers were on my side � it was fairly obvious from their muted admiration at my cultural critique.

Today I mostly nursed my head.