2005-03-28 - 11:47 p.m.

Feeling jaw-droppingly awful about yourself and things you cause other people to feel through your actions wears you out, so its nice to take a break now and then and spend a day where you end up with soggy rusk all down your trousers. If your self-loathing has hit levels where you�re ready to dig forks into your legs whilst you sit at home and watch depressing TV, then I can very much recommend spending a few hours with the playful offspring of close friends who are happy to make you feel good about yourself whilst you jam pureed veg into their little cabbage�s slobbering jaws. Baby food is a great leveller.

I�m not what you�d call a huge fan of facing undeniable truths about yourself. But that�s probably the problem. Which is why I will from this day dedicate these pages to intense, prolonged psychological introspection and bad poetry.

Not really. I�ll be back to the same under-achieving, clich�-spouting pencil-neck anytime now. For now, though, the comic potential of being the guy �just coming out of a relationship� is nothing to get excited about.

I�m hoping my emotions can be channelled into something at least vaguely productive, because for one thing I could really fucking do with doing some writing because the job description on my business card is looking more and more tenuous by the minute.

I imagine ten years passing�.

�Uncle Pablo, are you really a freelance writer?�

�Why, yes, I had about forty words published a decade ago. Still waiting for the cheque, though, of course.�