As of late I feel that my life has been one big mashed up rollacoaster of time. I'm just so fucking busy - all the sodding time. In between the moments of madness where I take a breath, rub my hands together and say "well what's next"... I contemplate a time when I used to be bored. Yes this did exist. And I liked it.


I remember a time when I would come home from work and not have to turn my computer on whilst simultaneously stripping off my work clothes and eating an apple - Multi-tasking of several orders. I would casually get changed. Put some music on. Flick through a few channels. Maybe sit in the garden for a bit and call a friend. Then there would be those still bits where I'd tap my fingers on the arm of the chair at what is on the TV and utter those distant words "i'm bored". My girlfriend would come home from work and ask what I've been doing. I would reply with "nuffin" - hands in pockets.


Today my girlfriend comes home and asks me whether it has been a constructive day... I reply with:


"yeh not bad, i managed to sort out the issues with overlapping text on my comedy site but then had to re-do the sidebar as a result, which was good but then I had an idea for a blog entry so wrote that. I also got an email about some web design that needs doing for some guy in the states so I had to spec that out and get an email to him. And yes before you ask I did fix the taps in the shower and put the washing out and oh your mother rang and the roof is being fixed next thursday..." deep breath "... as for work at real work... well that was pretty dull. I had a meeting about what to do if there is a fire and we saw a video of somebody getting electrocuted. Apart from that it's been pretty quiet today."


I have a question for everyone really. How do you find the time? Is it possible to train yourself to need less sleep? Are there any health disadvantages? I'm one of those people that if they don't get 8 hours sleep wakes up wanting the whole world to shut up and die. I'd love to be able to manage on five. But how? Any tips? I've heard viagra works?

This weekend was great and I'll tell you why. My soon to be wife and I decided to go away for the weekend - well saturday night 'cos she works saturdays - and she was happy for me to arrange it and keep it a surprise. All the indications from our previous conversations were that we would be going camping. I however had a different idea.


Through texting Lou at work I had managed to pack all the clothes she would need for our little trip so that when she walked through the front door she could quickly get changed and be ready to go. I had told her previously that she would have to wear a blindfold on the journey as I wanted it to be a complete surprise - she was very excited about this part - I told her that she would have to keep it on until we got at least as far as the first service station. A little lie.


After leaving the house I took a number of detours so that it appeared that we were getting on a different motorway than we actually did. This made her think that we were heading to north wales. In reality we were heading down the M6 to Birmingham - the city where we met and fell in love. Just over an hour after leaving I started to tell her that the motorway was coming to an end and that I thought we would need to go through a little town to find a service station. Five minutes later and I was in the middle of Birmingham amongst busy traffic. Lou is sat next to me with a blindfold on. We had the music blasting out and she was singing her head off in excitement. She thought that we were in a little village in Wales. Little did she know that we were at some traffic lights with cars and people all around us peeking to see why there was a woman with a blindfold on in that car? I just kept looking forward trying not to meet anyone's gaze in embarrassment.


I had booked us into the best hotel in the City. It's called the Hyatt - you may be familiar with it - and it's probably the tallest hotel with 24 floors and is a full glass building. Beautiful. As we were approaching the hotel I told her that she might have to take her blindfold off to help me with directions as I was getting lost - a little white lie. We were on Broad Street when she removed the blindfold and her face was amazing. Her eyes started to well up in shock as her brain tried to calculate where we were. She figured out the Birmingham bit but then asked "well where are we camping?", this was perfect timing as the big glass structure of the hotel came into view. I pointed - "there's the campiste". The tears then came. Her face was again a picture.


I'd booked a king size club class room - which basically meant we had our own private lounge area for exclusive guests and our room was on the top floor overlooking the whole of the city. Absolutely beautiful. We both loved it and found the whole glass wall overlooking the city very kinky. Surfice it to say we didn't sleep much that night. Room service at 3am was very funny (I'll save this for another time with the poor lad working the night shift entering a room festoomed in sex!) The next day we kept looking back wondering whether anybody could have seen us in there ;o


On the Sunday we checked out and strolled around our city for the first time in a few years. We met here as friends ten years ago. How fast time passes. We don't do these things too often - probably no where near as much as we should do - we do make the effort though. It's funny how in life you can easily get into a routine such that as a couple you can almost live two separate lives. Going back to the place where me met was all we needed. No worries, no fears. Just happy tears and love.

It's getting close to being four months until I tie the old knot (no not a vasectomy - I'm getting married.) Yes old scraps is hanging up his testicles for a life of crosswords, slippers and pipe smoking. At times like this I like to reflect on my life to date. During one of these moments of reflection I started to think about my old imaginary friend. Where is he now? Jonathon or 'Jono' as I used to call him would follow me around everywhere - always looking over my shoulder. In the end I managed to lose him at a service station near Winchester during a summer holiday with my parents. I was 8 years old.


During the early stages of our two years together (1984 - 86) it was all fun - playing tennis together (he'd let me win) and exchanging stories about various people. Towards the end though it all went bitter. It started when he wet the bed and blamed me. I decided not to speak to him after this but he continued to nag me. Flicking my ear and spitting in my food. We ended up having a really big fight where he threw me out of the window and I landed on the conservatory roof. It was at this point that I started planning how to lose him - culminating in a military style operation at the service station. I sent him to buy me some chocolate where there was a really long queue. Once he'd gone I ran back to the car and shouted at my Dad to "Drive Drive Drive!!!". 213 miles later and I'd done it - I'd lost the fucker. I never heard from him again. I always felt bad about this but also relieved as he was a tosser.


Anyway last month I decided to look him up. After a few days of making phone calls to other imaginary acquaintances I found out that Jono is now an ex-lawyer serving time for fraud. It appears that after I'd left him in Winchester he'd caught a train to Brighton and was adopted by a six year old called Alan. Alan was a clever lad and brought out the studious side to Jono. But once a tosser always a tosser so during his time at uni in Cambridge Jono got caught up in the wrong crowd and six years later was sentanced to 12 years in prison on several counts of serious fraud. I sent him a letter - once I knew where he was - trying to get some closure I suppose. He replied with a scrawl saying "go fuck yourself". That's closure then I thought.


It got me thinking though - what happens to all our imaginary friends - do they go on to lead successful lives as masters of industry or do they just fade away and die? Eventually I managed to replace the imaginary friend with an alter-ego. Much more grown up. Depending on whether you are male or female - he's the one wanting to either go out on the piss with you or get into your pants. I'll introduce him another time - you'll like him.

This post is not my real post - honest. It's what I am now terming a sub-post (a post in between the last big post and future big post - if that makes sense.)


The reason being I've got a couple of things to tell you about. Firstly, I have chopped half of my finger off. Yes. The 'accident' occured whilst making a greek salad for a BBQ I was hosting for family. I'd been cooking for about 3 hours, making my own burgers etc when whilst slicing up a lettuce I sliced up my finger. I took a quarter of my nail and load of finger with it. Nice. I put it straight under the cold tap - at which point I realised that I must be exposing some nerve endings as I've not felt pain like it. So today I have a big plaster over my finger and I'm having serious trouble typing as I've been pressing about four keys at once.


Secondly - it looks like my new business is taking off. I've been asked to design a website for the brother of a friend. This guy is an up and coming athlete so it could be good advertising for the company (beware the cheap plug... "need a funky new website, blogger of wordpress template... come to Spitfire Design Studio! and you will smile a lot.)


And finally, as this is a sub-post I thought that I would also use this as an opportunity to tell you about Rose DesRochers. Rose runs a womans writing community writing about all sorts. Recenty however she had some of her source code stolen by a guy who runs a teen porn domain - anyway this guy is such an idiot and Rose, being the clever little lady that she is decided to change an image that the source code pointed to. The image now takes the piss out of the guy. Idiot. If you want to read all about this then go to Rose's site.


So that's it - normal big post will be coming soon once I have grown part of my finger back... think I'll have to miss martial arts tonight :(

Ok so after reading about Bonestorms - sounds of silence experience - I was reminded of the time that the girlfriend and I lived in our first real bought house (I say this like it was years and years ago but in reality it was only last year.) Anyway, we lived next door to the quintissetial ASBO family. A complete hodge podge of foul language and fat belly button pierced fatness **deep breaths Matt** as you can see this all brings back bad memories. In fact it was hell. We lived in the house for a full year and the walls were that thin that we could even hear the family taking a piss. Wrong. So so wrong. Stop me though as I could literally write for hours in complete anger about a dog that barked all fucking day and how when I was asleep at 11pm they'd all come home from a day at Mcdonalds or something, swearing and arguing... grrrrrrr. I'm moving further and further from the story here....


The family consisted of a mother (on her own - nahhh - don't show any sympathy she was a complete bitch) and three children. The youngest had been expelled from school and was only 11. The middle girl was 13 and would quite obviously be pregnant within the next year. The oldest was 18 and a total utter chav. He drove a suped up Nova - I called him tosser - the girlfriend used to call him 'dweeb boy' as he was really thin and didn't look all there. Anyway I'd often heard 'dweeb boy' having sex with his girlfriend (a screamer by the way - just to add depth to the story) in his mothers bed when they were all out. It got quite funny at times as we would be in the bedroom giggling to ourselves with our hands over our mouths. Anyway there was this one time when we'd just settled down to watch Lost in Translation on DVD. We'd also had a curry delivered and were tucking into that. All was good and it had been pretty quiet next door. It was about 10.30pm. Whilst eating and watching the film I was conscious of a faint noise in the background that over quite a long time was getting louder. I looked across to my girlfriend. "what the fuck is that?" she eloquently asked. I muted the sound. "mmmm well - either 'dweeb boy' is having sex or someone is kicking their dog", I answered. I mentioned she was a screamer right? Well I'm thinking she must be faking? as I look across nervously to my girlfriend. "He must be hurting her", my girlfriend asked (this reassured me). After a few minutes of high tempo rhythmic body banging we heard a car pull up outside (at this stage by the way the film was off and the curry being kept warm in the oven) "No way - the whole family is home!!!!", I laughed. But the humping continued... and continued...we could hear the family talking outside.... the humping continued.... continued.... the keys jangling.... continued.... in the door..... STOP!.... mad rush of feet......(the odd "shit shit shit").... running around.... mother of the family shouting "Look at the fucking mess in here!!!".... Dweeb boy then runs downstairs to greet his mother and starts having a domestic with her about dishes in the sink - all of this whilst dweeb boy's gal is probably putting her bra and pants back on and making his mothers bed! Totally hillarious. Me and the missus have glasses up against the walls at this point trying to catch every word. I think he got away with it but did get her pregnant pretty soon after - sods law I say. I still laugh to myself about this now. He must have been so so close to being caught. Now that would have been funny.


I've lived in my fair share of housing and have experienced other such incidents.... in fact I could probably start a whole blog about hearing neighbours have sex - some funny some deeply traumatic. I was reminded of this by Blogstorm anyway so I hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know if you have had any similar comical experiences. God knows what the neighbours think of me and the missus - can you make much noise through a PVC gimp outfit?

My house has been under attack now for 4 days. We are holding out but may need re-enforcements (sub-machine guns, those big sword things that klingons use and oh some curly wurlies.) Yes for some reason, maybe a pheromone that my highly toned masculine body is emitting, but the worlds supply of animals think that they can free-load off my house.


In the past week I have logged the following house and garden animal activity.

1. A fat bastard squirrel trying to grind its way into my loft
2. A magpie (convicts of the bird world) also trying to gain entry in my loft
3. A hedgehog trying to get into my garage
4. A cat (witches of the animal world) pooing - yes pooing - on my composter


I have therefore penned the following statement to be read to all animals that have heard of Chez Matt's and think that they can just waltz on over for a bit of R&R and walk all over me like some cheap piece of ass. I will not tolerate it any more. Mark my words.


Squirrels, Badgers, Birds, Cats and Moths,


It is with great regret that is has come to this but I feel we have reached a fork in the road that I may have to stab you with. Over the past year I have welcomed you with open arms. I have even left nuts for the Squirrels and stale bread for the birds. I had hoped that we could share our little piece of land but oh no. You have to take fucking liberties don't you. I have noticed this week that one of your Squirrel friends has been gnawing away at my roof making a hole the size of a football. I have therefore had to resort to a death defying stunt involving a wobbly ladder and a hammer in order to block said hole. It will go no further. It must end. I am going to refresh your memory. Remember February. I'm sure you do. There was no food was there and it was really cold. Some of your friends probably died. Well do you remember that one of your squirrel brothers went missing? Big bushy tale and pointy teeth? Remember him? Well I do. He was the one living in my loft, eating my gutter and generally making what is technically termed a fucking racket at 5am every morning. Well he didn't die of cold. No, sorry - but he was captured during operation squirrel storm. Your brother is currently a POW at an undisclosed location (see picture.) He is being fed well and has not been mistreated. But take my warning seriously. Any more of these shenanigans and he will be thrown in the canal. The event will be videoed and broadcast on Al-jazeera television. So stay away. Don't even think about touching my property. And the cat that shat on my composter - I'll turn a blind eye - as long as it's been removed by the morning.


Yours angrily,


Matt (captor of all things squirrel)


Do you think they'll listen?

So you all want to know what I did at the weekend right? Well I didn't go sodding camping that's for sure. Instead we did what all modern day loving couples do (excluding the beating, knife threatening and plate throwing) - we compromised. Lou wanted to go camping whereas I, as you already know, was well up for the weekend in bed. Instead I played my trump card. I used the 'S' word. A word that makes women weak at the knees and men normally run for cover. Yes... Shopping. So the compromise was thus. We would stay at home all weekend on the condition that on Saturday morning we would head into Manchester to buy wedding clothes for me, on the other condition that we be home for the football. A deal was struck with all signatories agreeing to the pre-weekend agreement. And relax.


So in the end we had a great weekend. Please find the comedic summary below:


Friday evening: We decided to play our own drinking games whilst watching the football. In memory of a game we played at uni we re-invented "Drink Ball!!!". Now the rules of drink ball are quite simple. All participants must drink lager - from a pint glass. For throw-ins you have to drink one finger-width of your drink. For free-kicks (fouls) - two fingers. For yellow cards - three fingers. For red cards you have to drink a short. For goals you have to finish whatever is left in your glass. Doesn't sound so difficult does it? Well go on give it a try. After 30 minutes of the match we were both hammered. Fuck me there are a lot of throw ins and free-kicks in a game. By half-time we had both given up. Hooorah. Early to bed then.


Saturday: A slight snooze (in giant bed - picture soon to follow) before travelling into Manchester and spending more money on clothes than I have ever done before. AND! I managed to buy my wedding outfit. I bought some cool linen trousers from Reiss and a Paul Smith white shirt that made me look "well fit" according to Lou. I'll take her word for it. So all I need now is a nice belt and a pair of cool sandals and I'm there. Just five months to go! So after shopping in Manchester we headed home to watch the misery that was England being knocked out of the world cup. Boo hoo hoo. Tears on my pillow and all that. By the end of the game Lou and I were again quite drunk and Lou fell asleep in the garden whilst I tidied up and read a few emails. Early to bed then!


Sunday: 11am I woke to discover that we had both slept (in giant bed) for a full 12 hours!!!! a new world record, well maybe not but certainly longer than I have slept in five years. I felt well and truly fucked. My whole body ached from sleep. I thought it was meant to be good for you? So we had breakfast in the garden before actually doing some gardening. BUT it was way too hot and as a result I promptly gave up, instead preferring to kick a ball around and sip the odd shandy. After being caught out in a freak thunderstorm we went inside to watch the final two hours of 24 series five!!!! Immense - when is six? when is six? when is six? And that was it. My non-camping weekend. I must admit that I was overwhelmed by your lack of camping support but hey - we're all family right?


I'm going camping at the end of the month by the way. With the future in-laws. At what point should I start feigning illness?