I note with interest (via Script Sales) that Philip Pullman’s trilogy has been optioned. Personally, I think the comparisons it has had with Harry Potter have hindered it – it’s about a child in a fantastic world, but it’s darker and smarter, with bigger and more complex themes that Potter, where the emphasis is firmply on wonder and fun, more classic fairytale escapism. By the sound of it, the deal is to adapt the trilogy into one film (which should actually be pretty workable), and I’ll be watching to see the direction they take with it…

At some point this year, I am planning to get a tattoo. When I turned 18, I promised myself that if I still wanted one at 25, I’d get one. I still want one. This year feels like a good one to fix something in my flesh that’s symbolic of my life at this point. So, I’ve been trawling symbols.com digging up reference material. Mind you, I think I may have the tattoo henna’d on first – I’m not about to have something magically charged (as I’m currently planning( put into my flesh without some form of trial period.

Enough with all the fucking romance, OK? It’s getting bastard frightening. People are getting engaged and laying wedding plans all over the fucking place, and it’s becoming vomitous. And frankly, if you’re going to get engaged, do it some time that isn’t Valentines Day. I’ve had “We’re getting married!” announcements coming at me right left and centre for the last three or four fucking days, and I’m fucking sick of it. If this happens again next year, I shall start firebombing bridal shops.

Now I am going to swill down whiskey and indulge in bitter misanthropy. I’m fed up with quite liking the world, and being happy for all its damn happy and romantic people.

Now fuck off and stop bothering me.

I mean, it’s Saturday night. I am young, free and single. I should be out painting the town red. Instead, for the third Saturday on the trot, I find myself at home, working. This is not a bad thing, exactly. I am happy here with my coffee, and my words, listening to weird post-rock and inventing strange new stories.

But I suddenly realised that I don’t know when the last time I went out and partied was. Some time around Christmas, I think. I mean, I’ve been out a couple of times, but no real town-painting has been on anyone’s agenda. A couple of fairly quiet drinks, at most. Fuck, I drank more while writing last weekend that I have while out and about since New Year.

I dunno, I’m 25 in a couple of months. But I look round and realise that I have more friends in Serious Relationships than single mates, that I find myself getting genuinely interested in the possibilities of interior decoration, that suddenly I work out and do yoga, and I wonder: when did I turn fucking middle aged? I’m sipping a fucking scotch-and-dry in the comfort of my own home at ten o’clock on a Saturday night, for Christ’s sake! I should be drinking improbable quantites of Jack Daniels and stumbling home drunk at 2 am. But no, the best social invite it seems I can muster is a quiet pizza in Soho with a couple of friends, which to be honest, I didn’t fancy.

And the corollary to all this: why, if even my younger friends are suddenly leading Commited and Grown Up lives, do I still feel that I’ve hardly fucking started? Am I just in denial? Am I going to slowly slide downhill over the next half-decade and turn into one of those sad and frightening 30 year olds that all the kids laugh at for not knowing that they are old and past it?

Oh, and just to round off this “Alasdair is becoming aged and bewildered” diatribe, here’s a sad anecdote about the younger generation, just so I’ve covered all the bases: apparently my brother’s friends consider me a heavy drinker, because, when I visited him at University, I drank half a bottle of Jack Daniels, and was drunk but by no means out of it. This is, reportedly, a Feat Of Alcoholic Prowess amongst 20 year olds.

I swear, kids today…

Again. It’s all Andrew’s fault. He bought a book of cocktails. So then we had to go and spend absurd sums on ingredients. And then, well, we had to try them, didn’t we? I mean, it would have been wrong not to, wouldn’t it?

This time last year, I was suffering recurring nightmares. I had a pretty good idea why – I’d come to the sudden realisation that I had no idea what I wanted out of my life, and was stressed, adrift and confused. Just the sort of thing to breed insecurity and nightmares. But, y’know, I got through it. After a while. And I have slept the sleep of the just thereafter.

But for the last two weeks, I have been suffering nightmares, every single night. Not recurring ones, and not ones that point to anything specific. Just bad dreams. Every night. I am getting slightly sick of this. With any luck, it’s just the stress of jury service, and things will be back to normal next week. God, I hope so.

blah blah dull bitterness blah blah happy for my friends blah blah evil corporate holiday blah blah nauseauting couples blah blah some people are happy single blah blah. I am legally obliged to say these things, because I have a blog, but not a date.

There. That’s that out of the way for another year.

Now I’m going to drink hot chocolate and curl up to watch “10 Things I Hate About You”. I had tentatively planned to make a shitload of cheap Valentines Cards and stand on street corners handing them out to random passers-by, but frankly, I’m much, much to tired to do that. I haven’t slept well in a couple of weeks, not so’s that I’ve felt rested. So I’m going to try and do nothing much that I don’t have to do for the next few days, and hope to be feeling my old self by next week.

“That dark and evil day is approaching when nauseating couples drench the world in golden syrup and sashay around showing off their love for one another as if they had licence not to get punched. Which they don’t.”

This is why I read Tom Coates’ writings. Because he makes me laugh like a drain.

Or something like that. Normally, I have a healthy skepticism about folk music. I regard it with the same sort of suspicion I regard beardy men who wear hand-tooled leather belts with faux-celtic knotwork and go on about “real ale”. A little warped, perhaps, but, you know, not really hurting anyone.

I do, however, make an exception for Fairport Convention, who have done my favourite versions of two traditional ballads (and yes, I have a soft spot for some traditional folk tunes, which I will explain another time – remind me about it at some point, if you really want to know), “Matty Groves” and “Tam Lin”. So, from time to time, I dig out the couple of albums I own by them.

So, the other day, I was in Virgin, looking for “Born Into Trouble As The Sparks Fly Upward” by The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-la-la Band (you need to check this out, by the way). I didn’t find it there, but I wandered into the Classical/Jazz/World/Folk Music section looking for it (not totally implausible – I’ve seen weird Post-Rock filed under “Classical” before) and found that they have a new Fairport Convention album playing. I liked what I heard, so I bought it.

God help me, I can’t stop listening to it.

“Elizabethan England On Crack.”

I came up with this the other night as a tagline for a pitch I’m working on. If it ever sees the light of day, you’ll know which one it is…