I'm awake when the singing starts

Re. the insomnia: it endures. Got to sleep around half-one and woke up at half-five, for maybe the 10th time in the last two weeks.

But this morning was the first time I turned on the computer, and I have to say it's helped. Not 'helped' in the sense of getting me back to sleep, but helped with putting things in perspective. I'm awake, that's all.

A couple of months ago, my strategy would have been simple: a dram and a dose of Derrida or Deleuze. The only effective cure for sleeplessness I know, and I mean that in the kindest way.

Others have recommended: baths, bananas, and glasses of milk.

My mother will always sing the praises of Radio Forth. When I was a baby, Forth was the only all-night broadcaster and when I woke up crying she would switch it on and sit with me till I slept again. It's easy to forget how much of a godsend that must have been then, when the 4am television was nothing but static.

Stuart Murray

I had visions once of myself as Glasgow's Bukowski, visions that in retrospect I'm glad I didn't pursue with greater purpose. But I recently stumbled upon this guy, who seems to be staking a claim.

Sample book titles: In Pubs, 7 Week Filing Job, People I've Met While Working...

He does simple but well-observed portraits of old men drinking and co-workers in shit jobs, with a bit of Tom Leonard in the mix too. He even worked for the post office.

Gaun yirsel.

Caveat abstainor

So, apart from a couple of quite deliberate leaps from the wagon, I've been off drink since late September. It's so-so: long-term abstinence might be right for some, but I don't think it's for me.

Chief benefits: improved bank balance, minor weight loss.
Chief drawbacks: sporadic insomnia, significant memory loss.

Yep, memory loss. I was recently looking back at my appointments diary for the last few months of 2007, and I realised that I can remember very little of what happened then. It seems kind of like a weird, absent dream.

Anneli thinks this might be because we didn't actually do very much over that period, apart from a trip to Skye which I remember fairly well. But on the whole it's a bit like someone else has been living my life for the past 4 months.

Curious. I guess this is what drifting involves. Still, roll on May 1st...