I haven’t written a blog in a while, ok for a very long time, ok, ok it was AGES ago. Jeez, you guys are so pernickety. I also feel like I need to apologise for my face sitting to your right while you read this.

 I’ve got a massive head haven’t I? It must be distracting having my head there, watching you, judging your response. A bit like when you’re on a train and someone reads the paper over your shoulder. It feels like their head is literally next to yours, nuzzling your shoulder and nibbling at your ear. Ok, I only did that once and in my defense I was hallucinating on mushrooms…ok it was more like painkillers…ok it was neither; it was 6 pints of Stella! For crying out loud, can you stop with the never, ending judgment?

It feels good to be writing again. Here on my new laptop. Yes I have a new laptop, it’s all shiny and silver and Apple Mac like. I think I love it, I think I love it more than I love my cat. I ought to point out that I don’t have a cat, but if I did, I would love it a lot less right now. Poor Mitzy, with her furry…face. And so, with this new shiny piece of equipment comes a new age of writing and blogging and being pro active and stuff. I am imagining myself like one of those proper writers, you know, the ones that get paid. Sitting in a coffee shop drinking an espresso and refusing to eat pastry because I’m probably gluten intolerant. I’ll probably sit in this café wearing a beret or sporting a pencil moustache and I’ll only eat fruit and maybe a handful of pumpkin seeds while I write comedy gold. Although I have a feeling most writers are more like me, sitting in my pants on the sofa with a tepid tea, unwashed and staring at a blank page for hours before tweeting about how unappetizing muesli is. Fine! Maybe that’s just me too…

So, in the light of everything that has occurred with the News of the World and phone hacking and the rights of the victim over the rights of the defendant in court, I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about wallpaper. The reason being is I actually have an opinion about the phone hacking, obviously I think it’s unequivocally unscrupulous and frankly a-moral. Especially given that some bright spark at the NOTW didn’t think it was at all wrong to hack the phone of a murdered child giving false hope to her family. So, that’s an actual opinion that I have. Wallpaper on the other hand…. I dunno. I think I have an opinion but when faced with half a dozen paper swatches I realize I don’t. My girlfriend recently wallpapered one wall in her front room. It took 3 years to pick the paper. 3 years. And for 3 years I had to have an opinion on wallpaper. What I liked, why I liked it, what I didn’t like, why I didn’t like it. Conversations were like this, “What do you think of this green?” “I like it.” “Why?” “Because… it’s…. a nice colour” “What if I want to buy red cushions?” “I’dunno…” “Because red and green don’t really go, unless we want to go bold…” ”Why don’t you go for this sort of pale blue one?” “You like the blue one? I don’t like the blue one. Why do YOU LIKE THE BLUE ONE?” I don’t know! I didn’t even like the blue one, I was clutching at swatches and I would have said anything to get out of that conversation! For crying out loud just get the colour you want!

3 years later she did. And it’s white. White paper.