Flip Flop Flying

Chris Brown is so sexyy
Chris brown is fucking sexy.
Chris Brown is so damn sexy!
Chris brown is tooo damn sexy …

Chris brown is sooo hot
Chris Brown is so fuckin hot
Chris Brown is Soo Hot<3
Chris Brown is pretty hot.

chris brown is so fineeeeee!
Chris Brown is fiiiinnneeeee as hell
Chris Brown is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooodamn fine :)
Chris Brown Is Some Fine Caramel!!

Chris Brown is in the building
Chris brown is in the building
Chris Brown is on the building!
chris brown is in the boulding.

Chris Brown is the king of Pop.
Chris Brown is the prince of RnB!!
Chris Brown is a really good dancer
Chris Brown is like jesus to me.

chris brown is a singer
Chris brown is perfecto! <3
Chris Brown is oh so soothing
Chris Brown is a modern day Sisqo

Chris Brown is my idol.
Chris Brown is my role model
Chris brown is really an inspiration.
Chris Brown is the master of my soul!

Chris Brown is a worthless fucking scumbag

All lines from this poem culled from searching "Chris Brown is" on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/#!/search/chris%20brown%20is

Note: it feels like picking low-hanging fruit to do a Twitter search poem of the things said about Chris Brown. He’s a moderately talented musician, a pretty good dancer, and, it would seem, a hideous human being. But he has a lot of fans, many of whom are more than willing to overlook his failings as a person simply because he is physically attractive.

More Twitter search poems here.

pigging out on Moroccan food
Pigging out on Cambodian
pigging out on Mexican
pigging out on Indian!!

pigging out on a burrito
Pigging out on pizza
Pigging out on noodles
pigging out on fajitas

pigging out on brownies
Pigging out on Chinese
Pigging out on strawberrys
Pigging out on some Portuguese cheese

pigging out on Wendy’s
Pigging out on burger King
Pigging out on Mcdonalds
pigging out on buffalo wings

pigging out on porfiteroles
pigging out on cupcakes
pigging out on oreos
Pigging out on chocolate and milkshake

pigging out on spagetti on toast!
pigging out on subway
pigging out on Mac and Cheese
pigging out at a buffet

Pigging out on mangoes!
Pigging out on fruit
pigging out on cereal
pigging out on froot loops

Pigging out on leftovers
Pigging out on sushi
pigging out on a huge cheese plate
pigging out on KFC!

pigging out on curry
pigging out on pizza hut
pigging out on bacon
pigging out on donuts

pigging out on nacho’s!
pigging out on apple pie
pigging out on cheesy puffs
pigging out on french fries

Pigging out on pickled onions.
pigging out on soda
pigging out on dim sum
pigging out on the sofa.

http://twitter.com/#!/search/pigging%20out%20on

More Twitter search poems here.

You know what’s awesome? Cheese.
You know what’s awesome? Leaving work early.
You know what’s awesome? Being a virgin.
You know what’s awesome? Elbow sweat.

you know what’s awesome? jello shots.
You know what’s awesome? Magical unicorns.
You know what’s awesome? Earth Wind & Fire.
You know what’s not awesome? A papercut on your knuckle.

You know what’s awesome? My mom
You know what’s awesome? My new phone
You know what’s awesome? My spider-man blanket
You know what’s awesome? Nothing.

you know what’s awesome? Mustaches.
you know what’s awesome? DINNER.
You know what’s awesome? Lightsabers.
You know what’s awesome? Kicking dudes.

you know what’s awesome? life
you know what’s awesome? kitties.
You know what’s awesome? Nothing.
you know what’s awesome? Me!

http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/You%20know%20what’s%20awesome%3F

Poem edited from searching for the above term on three separate dates: 4th August 2010, 17th May 2011, and 7th May 2012.

More Twitter search poems here.

There’s something very appealing about old futuristic houses that are in a less-than-perfect, slightly crumbly, state of repair. This is in Puebla, Mexico.

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Radiohead, Foro Sol, 18 April 2012.

It was good to hear There There, but aside from that, they were average. They need to get out of their arses and realise the glitchy songs don’t really have a place when you’re playing to a jillion thousand people in a baseball stadium. But then, I thought their last album was shit, and they played a bunch of songs off it, so, y’know. I got drunk, though, so that was good.

Pulp, Palacio de Los Deportes, 23 April 2012

Way way way better than Radiohead. First time they’ve ever played in Mexico. Crowd so into it. And it’s rare I feel any patriotic pride for my home nation, but there was something so amazing about hearing songs with lyrics about things which seem so local, so British – woodchip on the wall, for example – being sung by 10,000 Mexicans. I got drunk again.

Bars need tables. Normal tables. The sort of tables you can eat a knife-and-fork meal off. In my opinion the worst thing that happened when bars got all fancy was the introduction of sofas and coffee tables. Kinda makes sense in a nightclub: you’re more relaxed, and they are obviously better for any copping-off opportunities. But in a bar, where people tend to begin the night sober and you might want to have a conversation with your friends, the sofa and coffee table arrangement is awful. Just think of how easy a conversation is around a regular table. You can pull your chair in, lean on the table, drink, and your heads are relatively close together. They are built to enable socialbility. The sofa and coffee table arrangement, though, totally retards sociability. The only people you can talk to in any comfort are the people either side of you. If you are having a conversation with someone on a sofa on the other side of the coffee table, all comfort that the sofa is there to provide disappears. Particularly because the type of bars with sofas tend to also have louder music. You have to raise your voice. Making everything even louder. So everyone raises their voices, and they scooch to the edge of the sofa and lean forward (rendering the original comfortable intention of the sofas redundant; a regular dining chair is way more comfortable than perching on the edge of a sofa), still with a huge coffee table between you. It doesn’t promote conversation at all. Bars need normal tables.

hey guys
hey guys
hey guys
hey guys

Hey guys
Hey guys
Hey guys
Hey guys

Hey guys.
hey guys.
Hey guys.
hey guys.

Hey guys!
Hey Guys!!
hey guys :)
Hey guys!! :)

Hey guys :B
Hey guys! :D
Hey guys!xx
hey guys lol

Hey guys how are ya
Hey Guys How Are you???
Hey guys! How all doing?
Hey guys, what’s up?

Hey Guys! Please go follow my new twitter!
Hey guys, i know I’m being desperate, but can of of the people I follow, follow me back it’s just I need followers. Thank you!
Hey guys m new on twitter..pls follow.
Hey guys!I hope you twitter with me:} and sorry I can´t not good english ]:{——→

Hey guys!Welcome to my Twitter!
Hey guys wanna be friends??
Hey guys, thanks for the follow.
Hey guys pls follow me back

Hey guys do you like this?
Hey guys, like my shoes?
Hey guys like my tattoo?
Hey guys, this look suspicious to you?

Hey guys what do you think about my new profile picture?
Hey guys what happened with Toby?
Hey guys! Who’s excited for icarly and SNL tomorrow !?:)
hey guys, do you ever come back in Italy? :)

hey guys bring kleenex
Hey guys look!…. i brought bread.
hey guys this is soooo intresting!
HEY GUYS! I’m bored right now :(

HEY,GUYS,WHERE YOU BEEN?
hey guys have a great day.
Hey guys, I hope you are having a great night.
Hey guys – no big plans for the my weekend.

Hey guys check out my latest article
Hey guys check this out!
Hey you guys can’t miss out on this!!
Hey guys I wrote you a haiku

hey guys sorry!
Hey guys! Sorry I haven’t been on.
Hey guys, sorry i didn’t tweet last days..
Hey guys sorry for all the issues today

HEY GUYS HAPPY FRIDAY!!!
Hey guys, ITTSS FRRRIIIDDAAAYYYY!
Hey guys it’s April 6, 2012.
Hey guys, it’s April 06, 2012 at 04:30PM. Better grab yer dicks.

More Twitter search poems here.

A couple of years ago, I did an infographic about Turner, Montana being the farthest town in the contiguous United States from a Major League Baseball park:

(it’s also in the Flip Flop Fly Ball which is still available at bookstores of varying quality).

Journalist Conor Dougherty decided to visit Turner, Montana. You can read his article (and see his video) for the Wall Street Journal here.

I really want to visit Turner now I’ve read and seen that.

Last night I listened to the “Divine Madness,” one of the many “[Shouty Word] Madness”-titled compilations of music by the British band, Madness. Looking at the track listings of those compilations, “Divine Madness” seems to be the best one, at least for a brain like mine, that likes things to be complete and in chronological order. It’s got all of their British singles from 1979 to 1986 (apart from, oddly, what would’ve been the second to last of the sequence, their cover of Scritti Politti’s The Sweetest Girl; although Wikipedia tells us that a later re-packaging of the album corrects this).

When I think of my childhood, and the music that I liked, it’s not very often that Madness come to mind. Aside from Baggy Trousers being the first 7″ single I bought, my childhood musical memories tend to be headlined by Adam & the Ants, Duran Duran, Simple Minds, Dire Straits, Bruce Springsteen, and U2. As you can tell from that list, I was not one of those kids who was buying imported hip hop 12″ singles when I was a teenager (although I did buy the 7″ picture disc of White Lines). But listening to “Divine Madness” last night, and again this morning, they do, in a way, complement the memories of those years pretty well. And, in that way that music can, hearing Madness songs flashes my brain back to moments during those years.

So, here’s a review of a compilation album that came out in 1992, full of songs released between 33 and 26 years ago. Say what you want about me, but you cannot accuse me of not having my finger on the pulse of popular culture. I’ve inserted a few YouTube videos into the text, but rather than doing all 22 of them, I’ve only included the videos of songs I bought on 7″ when they were in the pop charts.

The Prince 1979
Can’t say I was really aware of this song at the time. I have no strong memory of it at all. It didn’t get into the top ten, and I was eight years old, so I have forgiven myself.

One Step Beyond 1979
I’ve always liked bands that have a band member that doesn’t really do a whole lot. (See also Paul Rutherford, Bez, Cressa, Barry Mooncult, Shinya Hayashida.) At the time, that’s kinda what I thought about both Suggs and Chas Smash. Suggs does virtually nothing on this song, and aside from the intro, all Chas does is shout three words.

My Girl 1979
Pfff, I’m nine years old when this is in the charts. It’s a song about a girl. Why in the hell would that be of interest to me?

Night Boat to Cairo 1980
It’s funny looking back how exotic some places seemed to be. The whole James Bond franchise was pretty much based on that concept: you’ve never been to India or the Swiss Alps or wherever, and Roger Moore is there right now, about to slip into something more comfortable, which, at that tender age, I had no idea meant “the vagina of the pretty lady with a strange accent and well-conditioned hair.”

Baggy Trousers 1980

As I mentioned, this was the first single I ever bought. My memory, my faulty creaky memory, is that I’d kinda been gearing up to buying a record all of my own for some time. It was probably just a couple of days, though. Time seems mammoth when you’re a kid, and the impatience of wanting to buy Baggy Trousers on a Wednesday and having to wait ’til Saturday was torture worse than Dick Cheney could ever imagine in his cold, black, recently-chucked-in-the-bin heart. My mum worked at a clothes stall at a covered market in the centre of Lincoln at the time, thus she knew the people who owned the market’s record store, Save Records. She mention that I might be able to get a few pence off of my purchase if I went there. For whatever reason, I didn’t go there; I bought Baggy Trousers at WH Smith. It was one pound. After that, I bought most of my records from Save Records where I got them for 90p, which allowed me to spend the remaining 10p of my pocket money on sweets. Sweets! Sweets! SWEETS!

Embarrassment 1980
After the school-themed previous single, this one seemed a bit adult to me. And the title was difficult to spell correctly. The first line is “Received a letter just the other day.” How many nine year old kids get letters? Not me. Therefore: adult-themed material. (Not adult as in naked people doing it, but adult as in gas bills and paying for groceries.)

The Return of the Los Palmas 7 1981
Hold on! This one’s an instrumental (aside from some background chatter and the odd bit of ad-libbed talking). That’s not right. Music should have singing on it, shouldn’t it? At the time I was well aware of Telstar by the Tornados, as it was one of the seven inch singles that my dad had from his youth. But that just sounded like fantastic space future music, not music made by normal people. Space music don’t have no singing. I’m kind of of the opinion that pretty much all instrumentals done by bands who normally do singing are rubbish. They often have a feel of “the album is due and the singer’s too busy slipping into something more comfortable, so let’s make this one an instrumental.” This song is an exception to that possibly-harsh view of instrumentals.

Grey Day 1981
Can’t say I have many memories of this song. Quite like it now, though. It’s got an enjoyable middle eight.

Shut Up 1981

The second Madness single I bought. I would not be surprised if the video was influential in that. Cops and robbers and a piano dropping from the sky. The spaghetti western-style guitar solo is pretty cool, too. And about two-and-a-half minutes in, the piano playing gets pretty great, and sounds slightly “off,” for want of a better word. I liked that. The 7″ copy I had of this had what I assume was a slight pressing error. You can faintly hear the start of the song a second or so before the song actually starts, like a pre-echo. I have other records like that, but it was really noticeable on this, because of the big crashy piano chord at the start.

It Must Be Love 1981
Eleven years old, and as with My Girl, I care way more about Kenny Dalglish, Kia-Ora, and picking my nose than anything to do with girls.

Cardiac Arrest 1982
No way I was going anywhere near this one. I remember clearly my mother expressing the opinion that it was an inappropriate song title. That was the moment that I learned that cardiac arrest meant heart attack, something my father had recently had. The song is good, the chorus has a lovely melody, I quite like the lyrics, too, but it’s not a topic that I’m ever that keen to hear sung about.

House of Fun 1982
Not really sure why I didn’t buy this. The most memorable video they did, I’d say. And, snigger, it’s about buying rubber johnnys!

Driving in My Car 1982
If you, dear reader, are a youngster who wasn’t around to buy vinyl records in the early Eighties, you won’t remember that for a couple of years, record companies put out compilations that- well, let’s backtrack a bit: before the Now That’s What I Call Music series, most pop hits compilations in the UK were a bit crappy. They’d have some good stuff on there, but there’d always be a few songs you’d never heard of, that barely dented the top 40. I assume this is because the record companies putting out the compilations would be forced to include the crappy songs if they wanted to licence the hit song songs. Anyway, there was a couple of years when compilations would be double LPs. Not in the sense we all know double LPs to be, with the gatefold sleeve and that, but as “buy one, get one free” offers. Driving in My Car was on one of those such records that my father had bought, so I didn’t need to buy this single. Hurrah for my Dad!

Our House 1982

This had a children’s drawing of a house on the cover. As a twelve year old, that seemed stupid. There’s that great “a-wuh a-wuh” bit of bass guitar near the start of the song (39 seconds into the YouTube clip). Pretty song. Lyrics that, really, I was too young to appreciate back then. In a way, it’s kind of a shame that Madness had all the fun videos. They were great, obviously, but I wonder if they haven’t detracted from the band as artists. If they existed as records with the only visuals being black and white Top of the Pops clips like bands from the Sixties, maybe Madness would be more lauded. Not that they aren’t appreciated, but you know what I mean.

Tomorrow’s (Just Another Day) 1983

Never did understand the need for part of that song title to be in brackets. Seems to me that brackets in song titles are there to kinda remind the person in a record store about the line they like from the chorus, but without the bracketed title bits, the title of this song would be simply Tomorrow’s. Listening to this song now, it’s clear that my age was almost perfect for these years of Madness’ career. As I entered my teens and became a wee bit more grown-up, so did their music.

Wings of a Dove 1983

Good golly, this song is a happy one, isn’t it? That’s the main feeling I have about it, and the memory I have of it: the overwhelming joy. That may partly be because it was released in the summer when we were on our family holidays. I can’t remember where we went in 1983 (it was either Wales, Somerset, Devon, or Cornwall) but this songs sounds like the joy and the sunshine, the Beano summer special and a copy of Smash Hits in the back seat of the car as we listened to endless Radio 1 driving from beach to cafe to pottery gift shop and back to our sleeping bags at the camp site. Probably because we were on our holidays, and thus away from the telly, I don’t remember this video at all. But I do remember being thrilled that the single sleeve had a white-on-white embossed dove. (You can just about make it out on this photo, a little bit up and to the right of the middle of the sleeve.)

The Sun and the Rain 1983

The fourth of six straight Madness singles I bought. I guess I’d decided to buy all their records by this point. Once I liked a band to a certain extent, I was kinda determined to buy them all. This was never really one of my favourites, but listening to it last night and watching the video again before typing these words, it’s bloody fantastic. Another really pretty chorus, something I will say again about the next two singles.

Michael Caine 1984

The back of the single sleeve had an old picture of Michael Caine. Without glasses, with short straight hair. I could not marry that image of the young Caine with the contemporaneous one I’d seen on the telly: older, curly hair, big glasses. This is probably my favourite Madness song. It is utterly beautiful from start to finish. Love the bass playing, love Chas Smash’s (Carl Smyth by now) singing, love how well the “My name is Michael Caine” bits fit in to the flow of the song, love how it stops and then starts with an ace bit of piano and guitar (around 1:58 in the video). The chorus and singing therein are brilliant. Love it all. And it was released in the winter, and I think it fits the cold British wet February days, perfectly.

One Better Day 1984

If Michael Caine didn’t exist, this’d be my favourite Madness song. As it is, it’s a really damn close second. The seven inch single of this came with a fold-out poster, six times the size of the record. Can’t remember what was on the poster. I think the best thing about this song is how it takes about two minutes to get to the chorus, and when it does: bam! a gorgeous melody, Abba pianos, and the strings that are so pretty, in that way that almost feels like you are being emotional blackmailed to like the song. It’s even got a decent saxophone solo, and for me, that’s usually the sign of a song I will hate.

Yesterday’s Man 1985
Uncle Sam 1985
(Waiting For) The Ghost Train 1986
The three songs I didn’t bother copying to my iPod. Pianist Mike Barson had left the band after the “Keep Moving” album, and the crappiness of Yesterday’s Man and Uncle Sam pretty much signalled the end of my interest in Madness. Barson was back for the one-off single (Waiting For) The Ghost Train, but, y’know, whatever: it’s not very good. But maybe Madness had done their job in my life. I was 15, I’d moved on a little bit, moved away from Smash Hits and on to the NME.

Still, a couple of years ago my mate Mark mentioned that their then-album “The Liberty of Norton Folgate” was pretty good. And he was right, it’s a cracker. It’s nice when bands come back with something special after a long time of not really being that special. I still hold out hope that Weezer can do an album as good as the blue one and “Pinkerton.” I sometimes imagine Prince might do something good again, too. You never know, do you? I’d love to listen to a 60 or 70 year old Prince come back with something as ace and pervy as Darling Nikki. But maybe he won’t. And just like Madness, he’s done more than enough to make me happy over the years. Bands don’t owe me anything. I’m just happy that Madness were there to take me from being nine years old into my early teens.

An electricity-powered hand dryer with a blue light inside the blow-y bit so that the hands are illuminated as well as dried. The future is well and truly here.

And should you be enamoured by such low resolution photographs taken by me using my iPod touch (a camera which is waaaaaaaay shitter than the iPhone camera, annoyingly), and should you also be an Instagram user on such a device, you can “follow” me by looking for flipflopflying within said application on said device.

Ein Monat ohne Zigaretten.
One month without cigarettes.
Un mes sin cigarros.
Un mois sans cigarettes.
Um mês sem cigarros.

Compression artifact, glitch art, datamoshing, whatever the proper name is, of a moment in “Parks and Recreation.”

Something strange happens about one minute and 25 seconds into the video of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey and Justin Bieber. One of Justin’s mates’ plain black cap turns, for a few frames, into a Los Angeles Kings cap. Curious.

At the moment, there’s a bunch of posters up around Mexico City for the forthcoming elections. Lots of photographs of smiling people who want your vote. I keep seeing this guy’s poster strapped to lampposts everywhere. A bit of wind and the plastic-y posters bend and distort his face. Anyway, he is Mario Delgado of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática, the main left-wing party. I think he wants to be a senator or something. Click the pic to see it bigger.

It’s like James Joyce on acid
It’s like Mario on acid
it’s like Nigella on acid
It’s like vampires on acid
it’s like Walmart on acid

it’s like the Grammys on acid
It’s like reggae on acid
it’s like Mel B on Acid
it’s like a mix of M.I.A. and Lana Del Rey on acid
it’s seriously like awful elevator music on acid

It’s like Glee on acid
it’s like Stargate on acid
it’s like Art Attack on acid
It’s like Grey’s Anatomy on acid
It’s like The Antiques Roadshow on acid

It’s like Disney on acid
It’s like the Disney Channel on acid
It’s like Mickey Mouse on acid
it’s kind of like the The Powerpuff Girls on acid
it’s like being a toddler on acid

It’s like Citra on acid.
It’s like Mother Nature on acid
It’s like Vegas on Acid
it’s like Robin Hood on Acid
it’s like work but on acid!!!!

http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/it’s%20like%20on%20acid
More Twitter search poems here.

It’s like a ballerina dress on steroids
It’s Like Chinese Food On Steroids

it’s like iPhoto on steroids
It’s kinda like Powerade on steroids

It’s like texting on steroids?
It’s like Chuck-E-Cheese on steroids

It’s like a bucket list on steroids
it’s like Michigan weather on steroids!!

It’s like jogging on steroids
it’s like a chocolate croissant on steroids

It’s like techno on steroids
it’s like Tumblr on steroids

It’s like a college campus on steroids
it’s like period cramps on steroids

It’s like love on steroids
it’s like Glee on steroids

it’s like social networking on steroids
It’s like butterflies on steroids

It’s like a convenience store on steroids!
it’s like Kenny G on steroids

It’s like work out music on steroids
it’s like halo on steroids

It’s Law and Order on steroids
it’s like stupid on steroids

It’s like the devil wears prada on steroids
it’s like a garbage disposal on steroids

it’s like Stevie Nicks on steroids
It’s like Dr Pepper on steroids

It’s like Photoshop on steroids
It’s like chocolate milk on steroids

It’s like chicken soup on steroids
It’s like PANTERA on steroids

it’s like Animal Planet on steroids
It’s like waffle house on steroids

it’s like aerobics on steroids
It’s like jaws on steroids

it’s like iMovie on steroids
it’s like a long island iced tea on steroids

it’s like PowerPoint on steroids
It’s like Christmas eve on steroids

It’s like New York City on steroids
It’s like snow cones on steroids

it’s like Ziggy Stardust on steroids
it’s like ‘Dawn of the Dead’ on steroids

It’s like honesty on steroids
It’s like Tai Chi on steroids!

it’s like Fox News on steroids
it’s like marijuana on steroids

It’s like infomercials on steroids!!!
it’s like a honey butter chicken biscuit on steroids

It’s like twitter on steroids
It’s like a paper cut on steroids

It’s like Excel on steroids
it’s like s’mores on steroids

It’s like Nyquil on steroids
it’s like bud light on steroids

http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/it’s%20like%20on%20steroids
More Twitter search poems here.

Day ten today. Things are getting slightly easier. I can feel the iceberg of craving breaking up into small chunks. It’s no longer an all-consuming desire. I went to a club last night where smoking was permitted, and that was kinda difficult. I now very much appreciate the smoking ban concept: it helps.

Anyway, I recently downloaded an app for my pocket device called TinyPixels. Figured I’d give it a go. Seems pretty good. Could do with a larger, more sensitive colour picker, but on the whole, it’s well worth the $1.99.

I drew a picture of my ex-girlfriend, which you can see below. The original (at the bottom) is just 46 x 4 pixels. Quite enjoyed drawing it. Sniff…

awesome!
awesome!
awesome!
awesome!

cool!
cool!
delicious!
Enjoy!!

Hope you enjoy!
hope you enjoy your pizza!
hope you all enjoyed your meal!
we at Pizza Hut are looking foward to you enjoying your meal.

we appreciate the feedback!
we appreciate the feedback!
we appreciate the feedback!
we apologize for the way your food arrived.

we apologize for the inconvenience.
we apologize for the inconvenience.
we apologize for the inconvenience.
great! hope you enjoyed!

we apologize for the inconvenience.
we apologize for the inconvenience.
we apologize for the inconvenience.
glad it was up to par!

this is unacceptable!
this is unacceptable!
this is unacceptable!
let me tell you…it is yummy!!!

-

The above is all taken from Pizza Hut’s tweets during January.
http://twitter.com/#!/pizzahut

More Twitter search poems here.

I spent an extremely pleasant portion of my afternoon today talking to Carson Cistulli for the FanGraphs Audio podcast. You can hear it by clicking the link that follows the colon:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/fangraphs-audio-craig-robinson-of-flip-flop-fly-ball/

Should you not be a baseball fan, but a literature fan, it might be worth your while checking out Carson’s book of poetry-ish stuff, Some Common Weaknesses Illustrated. He’s a talent man.

I’m on my sixth day as an ex-smoker. Although I don’t feel comfortable or confident saying that. I’m a smoker that hasn’t smoked for five days, and I’m working on not smoking for a sixth consecutive day. This, rather pathetically, is the longest period of non-smoking I’ve had since I stopped smoking cigarettes in 2002-03 for a little bit over a year. I’ve had several tries since then, but none of them have gone beyond three or four days. That longest period of stopping was aided by acupuncture. I had a little metal coil-y thingy put in my ear and the doctor told me to just push on it when I felt the urge to smoke. Pretty effective it was, too. I remember that the day after I’d stopped, England played Argentina in the World Cup. And I managed to get through that game alright. I’m not exactly going cold turkey this time; I have some NiQuitin lozenges I bought when I was in England over the holidays. They do help take a bit of the edge off.

This, though, is the first time I’ve attempted to give up—and got this far—when I’ve been single and freelance. No girlfriend or colleagues to keep me honest. First day was fine. Second day was a bit more difficult. The thing I hated the most on the second day was forgetting about it. I’d be doing something, and suddenly think, “cigarette!” and then, oh, can’t. Frowny face. Third day was the worst so far. I truly hated everyone that day. I could happily have gotten into a fight on Saturday and I wouldn’t really have cared if I won the fight or not. Day four, though, was the best to date. Felt like I’d turned a corner. The last day and a half, though, I’ve been edging back towards that day three feeling. Just feel like a right grumpy cunt today. I wanna burst your balloon. I wanna cut you off in traffic. I wanna tell you what happens at the end of the film you’re about to watch.

But, over halfway through this sixth day, I’m determined to keep in up. This is an unending war, I fear. Just a war I may slowly become more comfortable with fighting.