From a Hotel Room, Inverness May 17 2010

May 17 2010.

Amazing how dead a laptop feels without internet access. Lying here in my hotel room in Inverness there is no signal for my dongle and no signal for my phone. I am cut off from my usual sources of information, that of Google and Facebook as well as Nicola (my wife), so I have decided to try and document things simply by typing.

I do have the telly on and find myself increasingly worried by the face of our new Prime Minister David Cameron. All his talk of ‘getting down to work’, ‘asking not what benefits I can get, but how I can benefit Britain…’worries me. Not that I’m afraid of working (Nicola laughs) I do, but I’ve always panicked when someone tells me now is the time to do it. And there are those who genuinely cannot work; the unemployed, disabled, elderly etc etc. How does this Eton toff make them feel? Britain feels a bit like a sorry teenager who was supposed to be studying for exams but who has been nipping out with his mates, getting pissed and has suddenly, after 13 years, been caught. “But our cool uncle Blair said it was OK! and the grumpy old guy after him didn’t give a fuck!....”

It seems to me Cameron got in power by just being in opposition. He never needed to commit the tories to any policies, but to just oppose any the government came up with. I don’t know of anyone who voted for him (not hard being up here admittedly) and wait with baited breath to see what this new LibCon bunch will come up with. Britain is skint, unfit and we’re now a victim of passive smoking from our 40 a day neighbour, Iceland. With the holiday season fast approaching, the volcano on Iceland currently blowing smoke rings for fun, high into the atmosphere, could reek havoc on our own wee island.

I know how Britain feels. Being 42, under paid and unfit, with no strategic financial or family plan, I am a worried man. A wife, 3 daughters, a mortgage and a job with talks of bonus cuts together with the Governments promise of tax hikes, National Insurance hikes and Child Benefit cuts all contrive to make sure I am a worried man.  Nicola has been asking for ages for us to sit down and discuss a plan for the future but I keep putting it off. Why? Fear. Must I show Nicola that I’m the kind of guy who loves sailing a rudderless ship on un chartered waters? She knows all that. But surely now after 15 years of marriage it is time to show her I can change. I can take the wheel and pilot properly. Fucking do it then you sorry twat. It is the middle of May (17^th to be precise) and spring has sprung. What better time to get things under way?

I may keep this writing lark up. It is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now. Hopefully I can develop some ideas better if I write and then can go back to it. I may be able to make better sense of things If I’m not just juggling them in the sorry mass I call a brain. I don’t want to sound like Karl Pilkington here but sadly he has been an influence in me starting to write. Oh to be so funny. I’ve no ‘Monkey News’, poetry or insect based trivia but I do have an urge to make peace with the past, document the present and move on.

Good night. Ipod on. More drivel from Karl please…Good night Nicola, Caitlin, Molly and Ruby x x x