I am worried about my reliance on the internet. I am slightly lost without it. When I got in from my gig last night my broadband connection was down. It looked like a fault on the line and though I had been looking forward to checking my messages and maybe playing some late night poker I wasn't too disheartened.
But when it was still down this morning I found myself getting agitated and grumpy. What if someone had sent me a very important message at some point between 6pm on Saturday and 11am on Sunday? And hadn't sent it to the email address that gets directed to my Blackberry? How would I upload my blog? And check the internet for potential venues for my upcoming birthday celebrations?
I rang BT who told me there was a temporary fault on all 0208 lines and that it should be back up in a couple of hours. Two hours without the internet? What was I going to do? Read a book? Ha, don't be ridiculous. 90% of my waking hours are spent mindlessly surfing the interweb and suddenly without my metaphorical dummy to suckle on (I don't suckle on the internet and anyone who says I do and they've seen me doing it, is lying) I felt lost.
I wrote my blog on a word document and even by the time I had finished the connection was still down. Two hours had easily passed by and I was starting to get twitchy.
Jesus I was probably going to have to go outside, into the actual world, with its fresh air and sunshine.... so I could find a cafe with a wireless connection and sit in there. It was most inconvenient.
Perhaps it should have been a Eureka moment, where I realised it was time to check myself into a clinic to sort out my dual addiction to the internet and Flumps. Perhaps it should have been like that episode of the Simpsons where all TV becomes boring and the children all go outside and play as stirring music plays and reminds us of a better time. But I needed to find out if anyone had sent me a message on myspace, so I headed down to Caffe Nero, had me a coffee and logged on to their unreliable Surf and Sip network (it may be my computer that is at fault, but the service here seems to come and go with little warning).
Of course very little had changed in the world of the internet. I had maybe a message or two, but nothing that couldn't have waited for a week or two, but still being able to check my guestbook for sarcastic comments from people who hate my blog, but who for some reason seem compelled to read it and remark on it, made me feel alive and calm again.
I genuinely have a massive problem and maybe when this computer finally conks out I should just invest in a typewriter or a pen and put this seedy, intoxicating, boring world behind me.
But I was down in Hammersmith so I at least went to the gym, which after a pretty unhealthy fortnight and trying to use alcohol and junk food to clog up my arteries and brain and ears so I would not realise that my fifth decade was imminent, was probably a good call.
From Thursday onwards I will be sensible and grown up I promise. Well from Friday onwards as I want to celebrate the big day properly. Oh and then I am going to Montreal, which is really like a holiday for me, so I am going to over-indulge there. And then it's Edinburgh and it sort of marks the end of my youth, so I have to have a last hurrah of debauchery there. Then I have a two week holiday somewhere, and I want to be able to enjoy that. And then probably a London run of my show, where it would be rude not to have a few drinks after the show.
But after that -in October- you will be seeing a new non-Flump eating, tea-total, non internet using me. Or rather you won't. Because obviously if I am not on the internet I won't be able to do this. But I will write it on a typewriter and then throw each day's entry out of the window and hopefully t will find its way to you.
When I got home the internet was working again. What a relief. The way I was cut off from the world was much worse than anything that has happened with floods in the North of England or the ordeal of Alan Johnstone. I have the hardest life in the world and I take myself very, very seriously. And don't forget it, mental people who force themselves to read things that they don't enjoy and then manage to read something into what I have written that isn't there. You'll be telling me next that I am addressing you personally in my blog. As if I care. You big mentals. Get a grip. You mean nothing to me.
Hopefully things will calm down a bit after Thursday. Or in October. Or when I die.
