The Pursuit of Happiness

Sooooo…….. Last time we met I was full of hope and ambition. It was the last week of a life-changing trip down through the Americas continents, if I remember it rightly, and I’d seen enough awe-inspiring sights to ensure things would be different from now on. No more would the crutch of television hold me up as I merely existed my way through life. It was about experience and living and I wasn’t about to waste that opportunity in front of the fool’s lantern, drinking and sneering at the next batch of Big Brother cock snots as they paraded around the new fucking room, which was actually called the Fucking Room. Where they were encouraged to fuck.

Any guesses where this is leading then? Well, you’re wrong, you bunch of bloody doubters. When I got back to the UK I did make changes. Didn’t like the job, changed it. Relationships in turmoil, changed them. TV in the bedroom, changed it. So, as you can see, a lot of bonafide alterations from life as it was, to life as I wanted it to be. And no TV in the bedroom as well – may seem like a little thing, but to me it was like losing a testicle. My favourite one too – ol’ lefty. You remember him. Juts out a bit, but he’s all heart. And gross hair and veins.

Sooooo…… Does all of this equal happiness? Is this the final posting where I superciliously bestow my secrets and wisdom to enhance your experience on Planet Patronising Bastard and then flick a casual V sign in your direction as I cast my flaxon locks back and roar with the kind of self-love and mastubatorialism that would make Gordon Ramsay appear the very picture of Dickensian manners?

Nope.

Still pissed off. Still dissatisfied. Still envious of literally everyone else in the world.

But then that might be a good thing. People do their best work when they’re up against it. Look at the Egyptian slaves who built the Pyramids. They may have been getting continually whipped throughout their miserable, but mercifully short, existences; taking the sort of daily abuse unthinkable by today’s standards (unless you do actually still live in Egypt – topical alert, topical alert!) but look what they produced. My point is that if you sweat and toil, someone will appreciate it thousands of years from now, so it’s all worth it. And stop moaning, you long-dead, long-suffering Egyptian slave irrelevances.

Unfortunately, my erections are nowhere near as spectacular as Egypt’s, so you’ll have to make do with the sort of banal musings that, in 2007, had The Guardian’s Allegra Stratton saying absolutely nothing and elicited the following review from The Independent’s Robert Fisk:

(I have absolutely no idea who Robert Fisk is – it’s just a name I was given. I don’t even think he reviews anything. The point I’m making is that I’m a nobody. Do you see? Are you happy now?! My girlfriend thought you wouldn’t get it if I just left it blank and insisted I added this caveat to make it clear. Well? Is it clear? Probably. Is it funny? No)

The long and the short of it is that I’m back. I’ve been working as an English teacher in Peckham and Greenwich for the last 3 years and now I want to change it all again. This will be about how I manage that. Or wind up a serial killer. It really could go either way.