1.10am The room just literally shook. Very gently, but very definitely. At first, with my quaint little history of petit mal and red wine, I thought it was just me, but a few other people say they felt something too.

Was that an Earthquake in England just now?

 
1.23am The BBC is now reporting this

Miss Havisham: burned to death

Potter about. Diddle on work website. Scratch as iTunes peppers the day. Stare at the piles of unpacked books and unsorted clutter and feel like the end of university all over again. Door goes. Ignore it. Hear key at the door. Throw on dressing gown. Politely suggest to buzzarding estate agent that he give 24 hours notice next time. Go back into room and stare at books and clutter again. Big mistake. Is it just me or are they getting bigger? Call mother. Bigger mistake - when will I learn? End the phone call having staved off the habitual argument resulting from an equally habitual and belligerent incomprehension of broadband internet whilst securing the promise of packing crates. Think about food but don’t feel hungry enough. Notice vodka bottle but don’t feel Christine Cagney enough. Contemplate cigarette but think of how nice it would be to get my deposit back at this creeping critical stage, so stand outside in insidious February sunshine, freezing my eczema off in pyjama bottoms and slippers. Contemplate creativity.

Matthew: regenerated

Realise my current mental state is only capable of creating a fine mess and quickly give in. Come inside, but it doesn’t feel any warmer. Listen to The Song and feel hollow, unfilled, unsoothed by any monotone. It just wheals up a rash of fresh neuroses. Listen to generic late nineties chillout music with sitars in it and collapse face down on sheets already smelling old after a week and try to think about nothing at all. Try not to think about work, about how I’ll get another job when this one ends. Try not to think about six months in a house with my mother, and how nice the veins on my wrist look at the moment - all nice and conveniently tucked away under dry itchy skin.

Egg: became an author. Finally.

Try not to think about V Day, and whether that’s the biggest mistake yet, if this is all just a rehearsal to prepare for what hopeless loneliness is truly like. Try not to think I want to get out of the flat and go to the pub. Realise everyone who doesn’t know where their life is going inevitably ends up in a pub. All romantics meet the same fate someday - cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe. Realise I just want to get out. I just want to go somewhere. Text people to see if they want to meet up later. Ask them if they want to go out. No replies. This is it. You reap what you sow. This is what they tried to tell you about taking responsibility for your actions, and getting your just desserts. This is all about accepting your fate.

Sometimes when we don’t want to hear the answer to a question, it’s easier not to ask it.

It doesn’t make the answer any easier to hear of course, regardless of whether you ask.

The pretty Miss Peach has come up with a practical exercise for people who love the sound of their own keyboards. A small group of bloggers are putting together a book of short pieces by, surprisingly, other bloggers all over the world.

You’re Not The Only One will be a collection of submissions from blogkeepers on any topic as long as it’s personal - written about an aspect of the life of the person writing it, by the person living it. That after all is what keeping a blog is all about, isn’t it? That and shameless egocentricity and self-promotion, naturally.

Have a look here for more details and how to submit. The finished book will be on sale through Lulu for £9, of which £4.30 will go straight to the charity War Child.

If you blog but aren’t able to submit anything (which would, let’s face it, be pretty lame), then please at least put up a link back to Sarah’s post to help spread the word about this good cause.

Now go trawling through your old entries or write something new and send it on over.

The cynic in me can’t help but think that the recent fire will conveniently pave the way for a total redevelopment of the existing market as a whole.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7139492.stm

I saw you from the bus. You mouthed something - could have been anything. It looked like three words, but I pretended it was four, five maybe. Even two. I pretended I couldn’t see through the years of unwashed dirt, clumsy finger marks and breath smeared across the glass. I watched instead the city kick dirty newspapers around your feet, stared at the neon kebab sign haloed behind you in flickering reds, at the tarts and thugs cackling through crude foreplay all around you. Anything but at your lips. I half-pretended the glow hurt my eyes. The light changed to amber faster than anyone noticed, and I was away before I could even think about looking back. All that history blurred past faster than I could blink a snapshot of a single thing - the litter, the light, the shuffle of high heels and boots in a vulgar waltz about your humbly polished shoes, or your face as you watched me let me myself go without a word or a second glimpse.

Now here is one thing I will certainly be watching at the cinema. The original series has also finally be scheduled for release in English on DVD this year. If you still don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, then watch the video below. To a certain generation: if you haven’t watched this since you were a kid, then you may very well cry seeing it again. If you never watched this as a kid, then you’re more than likely not of a certain generation.

Sing along, everyone…