Fear And Self-Loathing In Slough.

Guided by the principle that you didn’t see Jack Kerouac or Henry Miller sitting around of a weekend worrying about whether their section headers should be in 14pt Arial or 16pt Univers, I just went out in search of some picaresque excitement, action and adventure.

It soon became apparent that I’d picked the wrong town for that, however, so what with being a girl and all I settled for the oldest known antidote to extreme sleep-deprivation and self-loathing, to wit: spending money I haven’t got on pointless rubbish.

Now usually buying books will cheer me up (one day I might even try reading them) but today it only served to prompt a massive bout of vituperative self-abuse (not *that* sort).

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? What, you mean you don’t already own it? What kind of complete, total loser *are* you? What’s it doing on your favourite books list in your profile then, you charlatan!”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, not *another* book about complexity theory! You’re only going to put it in the bookshelves in a fruitless attempt to impress people cleverer than you. Loser!”

“Enduring Love? You already own that, you silly cow. You might even have read it too, if it wasn’t rotting away in the cellar of one of those falling-down houses that you insist on buying and then abandoning because you can’t finish anything you start (cue Elliott*)”.

Still, that last one is one in the eye for Belbin.

Not content with the haul of books, I then wandered about in search of more unnecessary tat, getting more and more riled up at the entire global clothing industry’s ludicrous attitude to bikini sizing, which effectively means that I will never, ever be seen sporting a fetching two-piece swimsuit, and especially not at any point during my forthcoming sojourn among the eight-foot, golden-skinned Amazonians of Venezuela (which, if you put it like that, is probably all for the best anyway. Thank you, Dr Pangloss).

And in a final nod to my utter inability to be consistent or decisive about anything at all, I spent about four hundred pounds on nicotine patches that will see me through another two-month period of being a non-smoker, after which I will reward myself for my commendable abstinence by immediately reverting to a filthy 20-a-day habit. Great.

* STATUTORY WARNING: may provoke etc. etc.