Greetings

Hello world.
Welcome to my first attempt at immortality.

January 2009 has arrived and it feels rather inhospitable. The usual delegation of responsibilities and shelving of decisions has once again had its annual overhaul, although this time it seems to be more of a survival requirement than a disposable bourgeois cliché. Lack of funds, poor health, status anxiety and something apparently called the credit crunch have all aspired to undermine the blissful ignorance and egotistical arrogance of my youth. Thanks to 18 months in 'swinging' London, a pitiful redundancy package and a tragic (but rather poignant) failure to attend my Job Seekers meetings, the naive suspension of belief in my own abilities has come crashing down around my rickets-ridden ankles. All that remains is a black hole of self-pity and resentment; woe is me, you bastards, etc. Fassbinder's wonderful adage, 'Fear Eats the Soul', has never felt more apt, and with the price of bread behaving as it is it's no surprise that mine's been served at breakfast as a substitute for toast. All that remains is a small pile of carbonated crumbs. And a smear of margarine.

But where, you might ask, is this sentiment going to get me? Well, the answer to that, quite simply, is nowhere. The only thing left for me to do is to become the one thing I always dreaded: the person I described myself as on my CV. No longer can I stay in bed until 2 in the afternoon (although to be fair that's mainly to do with the really loud extractor fan outside the window). No longer will I suffer those probably self-inflicted bodily ailments (the dole renders pharmaceutical problems unaffordable and pharmaceutical solutions free). And never again will I fantasise about my future success whilst doing nothing to propogate its eventuality (cue this blog, you lucky, lucky things). That's right, it's time to 'get real'. It's time to become that 'pro-active self-starter' you told the HR girl at Deloitte you were. It's time to start playing squash twice a week. And, most importantly, it's time to start practicing and developing the things you want to be good at, on your own, and in your own time. (It's also probably time to stop talking about yourself in the second person. But one step at a time.)

And so will hopefully come the immortality we all crave. The feeling that your life has actually made a difference. The whole page dedicated to you in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Or, at least, something interesting and fulfilling enough to pass the time. And that wouldn't make you want to kill you if you weren't you and you read about yourself in the paper.

So hence the blog. And the overly dramatic and frankly pretentious opening. Sorry. I'm only trying to be 'literary' and 'intellectual'. Please don't judge me. Yet, anyway.