Setting out.

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I have to admit I've only read one blog before, and that was on the BBC. I didn't read it again.The chances are you won't come back to this one either. Just like a million other voices in a shouting contest, most people don't want to hear any of them. It's here all the same.

This blog probably looks a little simple, but having seen some of the templates available for free that's a good thing. It would only end up looking like a mid 90's home page, or a bloody awful tiled affair like the average myspace nightmare.

Anyway, that's all just nervous preamble to make sure I'm not a chimp in disguise, struggling to operate the most basic of web tools with non-opposable thumbs. My blog 'proper' will start now.

I'm 28. I sell stuff people don't want at prices they can't afford, but the law says they have to have it. I say the same few hundred words 50 times a day, and do the same little conversational dance with an endless list of bored customers, trying to pry their credit card details from them that will buy them a slip of paper and half a ton of bullshit.

I live in a flat I can barely afford, in a part of town that the rats only go out in if they're armed. I drive a car that runs on prayers and blind hope. My diet is mainly pasta, noodles, and mashed potato from a tin. All three are usually dusted in Herbs de Provence and/or ketchup, and accompanied by either fish fingers, Findus crispy pancakes or, if I'm feeling exotic, frickadellen from the East European butcher. Occasionally I really throw caution to the wind and order a pizza from Dominos. They don't even ask my address when I order any more. I don't know if it's my voice or the choice of toppings they recognise.

My neighbours downstairs only listen to The Prodigy, and usually the same 4 tracks at a volume just loud enough to get right on my tits. The neighbours upstairs have a bed that squeaks badly, and they always have sex on Mondays and Thursdays at 10pm exactly. It usually lasts around 20 minutes, and they always play the same mix-tape to try and hide the moaning and groaning - and to set the rhythm (the squeaks always fit the beat). Born Free belted out by Andy Williams is my 1 minute warning to turn the TV up, and they usually finish during Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc, or Pretty Flamingo by Manfred Mann. There must be some sort of Pavlovian conditioning by now. I should try and switch the neighbours' music collections one day.

My own life tends to have a blues, soul, and reggae soundtrack rather than 90s dance, and my sex life has a far more varied timetable than the couple upstairs. Sometimes they seem to get more action than me, sometimes not. For the last 3 months they've made me look like a monk. I broke up with my last girlfriend, Tammy, because I wasn't ready to consider having a band on my finger, and trips to Toys 'R' Us replacing trips to Ann Summers. Well, she broke up with me.

So it's the same shit, different day, for weeks on end. I'm going to end it though, and soon. Not with a noose, or fucking up some poor bastard's life by becoming a hood-ornament on the circle line. I'm just going to jack it all in.

I've got my resignation letter printed and ready, but I don't trust my line manager so I'm waiting until pay-day. I doubt they'll make me work my notice. I'll ring up a few friends and see if someone can put me up for a while, and I'll just quit the flat. The landlord can keep his deposit. He'll only invent some shit to keep it, or send his nephews round to break something worthless so he can deduct the same value anyway.

That all sounds a bit bitter and depressed. I'm not!
I'm just bored and don't want to bimble down the same lines and suddenly realise I'm 45 and without a single anecdote to embarrass the kids with - assuming some day that I'll end up ditching toys bought from Jacqueline Gold for Geoffrey the Giraffe's.

Only when I'm unemployed and homeless will I attempt to work out what I'll do next. A spot of hitch-hiking around to some seasonal jobs will probably make me happy for about a week so I won't do that. I need to fill a good few months!

Maybe I'll walk to somewhere like Rome for the hell of it.

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