Sơn viết

03/10/2023

“Like every day in a different place, sometimes in Hanoi, sometimes in London, I was alone, and the thoughts that form inside my head took over my surroundings. And if I were to reflect, try to come up with any sort of life assessment and see what it is that I contributed to the world, it would probably be: stories about how desirable I tried to be, how beautiful everyone around me was; and how damaged I had become, handing the world back pieces of my broken self.”

27/12/2022

A letter to my 20s

“ … In order to survive you will have to disconnect from the hopeful person you are today. All those conversations you had late into the night these past teenage years about what you will do in the future, well, none of that’s going to happen.

Let me see, how best to describe to you what it’s going to be like after today. I know. Pretend you’ve never waited tables before. You have no experience whatsoever. And now, you are about to be waiting dozens of tables with the most demanding customers in the busiest restaurant in the world. Figuring out everything as you go. With no break. Ever. Until you die. That kind of sums up life after today.

This safe little baby world you’ve been living in will be gone forever once you leave here. Everything from this day forward is going to be scrambling. Fumbling to keep up. Pay your bills. Figure out what you want to do. Who you want to be. I wish I could help you, I really do. But I can’t. That’s the messed up thing. Nobody can. You only have you.

But here are some other things that are also true.

Paying the first month rent by yourself is amazing. Nothing is better than being independent. Making your own decisions. Don’t blame others when things go wrong. That will be useful to know. Also, learn to apologize. And take criticism. When it’s helpful. And when it’s not, f**k it. Your instincts are always right. If you don’t love what you’re doing you won’t be successful at it. Unless you’re extremely good looking.

Don’t peak too early. And don’t be too hard on yourself. You still have ten summers in your twenties ahead of you. There is nothing more beautiful than a summer in your twenties. Cherish each one. It’s okay to not figure out what you want to do until you’re thirty. Or even later. Whenever is actually okay. Don’t ever not do anything because you’re afraid of failing. Failing is fine. I used to be terrified of it. It’s actually not a big deal, and sometimes a relief.

Don’t lie to yourself. Work hard. Don’t be an as***le. Not everything has to happen immediately. Play the long game. Hang around people who value you. Don’t be in a relationship just for the sake of it. It’s okay to be alone. Go to the theater. Look at art. Read. These are the important things. Making time for coffee with a friend who feels like s**t is also important. Always visit someone in the hospital. Always go to funerals. Everything else you can skip. Don’t bother too much about going to weddings if you don’t want to. Walk. Whenever you have the opportunity to go on a trip, take it. See the world. Always be willing to change your mind.

Try. Try. Try.”

29/03/2022

On Tuesday I aim to get up really early and go get my haircut, because the later you go, the longer you have to wait. I manage to wake up and make it to the barbershop at 10.30am, which is not early, not early at all, and there about eight people ahead of me. Potentially you can call up in advance and make an appointment, but the time has not come yet when I’m prepared to make a phone call and talk to somebody that’s not immediate family so that’s just not going to happen.

The most important conversation that takes place at the barber is the following:

Young Latino customer: “I need to have my hair cut because I’m going to a wedding”

Head barber: “Oh yeah? Who you going with?”

Customer: “On my own probably”

Head barber: “But who are you leaving with?”

Customer: “The baddest one there”

Head barber: So you want the ‘going to a wedding on my own, but leaving with the baddest one there’ haircut?”

Customer: “Yessir”

Head barber: “Dis what I do”

It is finally my turn and Mateo (the other barber) asks me what I want to do with my hair so I say I want to have it short. He asks “Buzzcut ?” which is completely not what I plan to do but somehow I say Yes. Mateo finishes my haircut, gives me a voucher for three free boxing classes, which I take both as a compliment and an insult, I pay him and leave.

I go home and listen to Buzzcut season by Lorde.

01/02/2022

I miss Tet so here is a throwback of an old post about my trip home

***

On Sunday morning I wake up really early but stay in bed for a long time because I don’t feel quite ready yet to go downstairs and face my parents. I watch Vietnamese sitcom repeats on TV for a couple of hours knowing that Mom will come and see if I’m awake sooner or late. When she does around 11, she greets me with a unique look of joy, despair, and accusation for being her son, for travelling back to London this evening, and for having made the choice to live there, respectively.

My flight leaves at 1900 and I’m regrettably informed thay before then I’m going to have to go to our countryside house with my Dad, primarily for some quality time with him and also to check out all the renovations they’ve made there. Acknowledging that this is the guy who holds absolute power over my future happiness (aka my inheritence) I accept, albeit bregrudgingly.

It’s about an hour drive to the house, during which time I learn that Dad is very proud of his new car (which I have failed to tell apart from all other cars he’s driven over the last decade or so), the achivement of the football team he supports, all the work he’s done over the summer and how our country house has turned into after having spent £225,000 renovating it. In comparison, I have very little to be proud of- unless you count having some questionable tattoos every quarter or so and I don’t think my Dad does- so I mainly keep my mouth shut and listen.

When we get to the place, I have to say I’m quite stunned as it looks almost unrecognisable. When I was small, we used to go there and spend most of our summer holiday as a family together. Eventually my Brother and I lost interest in the place in a typical teenage huff and we stopped visiting, leaving it to slowly deteriorate and go out of style. Now it seems Dad is reconsidering it for his retirement days and has decided to throw a big part of my inheritence into it. As he takes me around showing me new extensions, garages, window frames, outdoor barbecues, I make a list of all the things I could have bought with this money instead and try to calculate how many years I’d have to work at my current job to be able to afford a place like this, but I eventually lose count of the decade and decide to make an unsubtle attack.

I tell Dad that the flat I’m renting in Bayswater has currently been put up for sale, that I really, really like it and that I wouldn’t want to move out if they sold it. As Dad starts to take in what I’m getting at, I go in for the kill and mention that I have thought about this very carefully and ideally, I would like to be in a position where I can have the following conversation in the not so distant future:

New person I just met: ‘So where do you live?’

Me: ‘Bayswater’

Person; ‘Really? Nice! Do you rent there?’

Me: ‘No i own my flat’

Person: ‘But how? You’re still so young and have a s**tty job’

Me: ‘my Dad bought it for me’

As Dad looks at me confusingly, I add that I want this conversation to happen so that people will think I’m spoilt and hate me, and when I finish Dad tells me that maybe I should go and see a therapist because there’s obviously something wrong with me, at which point I comment that this doesn’t sound like a No to buying the flat for me and Dad says that it isn’t.

On the drive back, he asks me what the asking price is for the flat and how much I’m currently paying in rent (both of which I answer sincerely) as well as whether any of my friends’ parents have bought them apartments in London so obviously I lie and say yes. Dad tells me that he’ll think about it and I say that’s fine, but he has to remember that the marker in London moves very quickly and we have to hurry up.

When we get back, I tell Mom everything that was discussed with regards to the flat and to my surprise, she laughs and tells me that they decided to give me the money to buy the flat about ten days ago when I first told her it was being put up for sale, but Dad wanted to surprise me hence his prentended this was the first time he’d heard of it. She says he’s actually already freed up the money and asks me not to say anything yet and act very surprised and grateful when he finally decides to make the official announcement.

I double check that they’ll be using their own capital for this and not taking money out of my trust fund to contribute to the payment, assuring her that I’ll keep quiet until Dad tells me and finally cheer up despite being faced with another thirteen hour flight back to the foggy and miserable London.

08/11/2021

We fall in love with each other and we move in together, and retire from the dating scene for a few months, maybe a couple of years, because we have found happiness, and we don’t need this any longer; we’re over it. Then we f**k things up for fun or because we’re bored, and we start going out again and seeing all the people we know – most of them are still there at a different stage of their own cycle – and we fall right back into place and we do it all over again.

We can have this forever. All that changes is that each time you go back there’s one more person at the party that you have to avoid making eye contact with, or dancing too close to, because in the very recent past you destroyed their soul a little bit, or they destroyed yours.

17/03/2021

10.10.2019

“I make my way up the escalator because I need to get out and get some fresh air and I’m still shaking and I’m sweaty and I can see my reflection in the clear plastic screens of the adverts on the way up across the escalator and I’m white as a sheet, but not in a good way. I’m pale in a bad way, the way of someone that just nearly passed out in an underground tunnel somewhere in central London.

When I come out I text Kelly and tell him what happened and ask him to send an email around to tell the team that I’m running late, and I start walking to work, from a stop that’s not very near but not too far away.

I get to the office, where I attempt to do some work but mainly drink endless cups of tea and listen to songs from Vietnamese movies from the 90s, because for some reasons this is making me feel better.

I go to the gym where I make a half ass attempt to work out and look at no one and then I leave the gym and get on the tube, where I realise that I’ve left my watch in my locker. The watch I’ve been wearing since I graduated from university and my Dad bought for me to say ‘well done’. But I don’t go back.

Then I get off the train and I walk over to my connection only to find out that the line I need is closed, some signal failure or someone’s suicidal or something, so I have to take a different one and then change again. And a journey that should have lasted five stops is now going to take twelve.

By the time I get to South Kensington- which is not my destination, just a random stop I find myself at because of what happened- I am tired and fed up and my phone is run out of battery and I have no book because I finish it at lunchtime.

And then I get off, for no reason really apart from: why not? And I sit on a bench at the platform and stare. Now, if this were a bad movie, right at this point I would cry.

And in this movie, I would cry for the tube that’s not running, and I would cry for the watch that I lost and I would cry for the person I was when I was 16 and the things that I did and the bands that I liked and the places where I used to go out and the dreams that I had. And I would cry for my 20s that have been f**ked up even though I only have myself to blame for and cry for my parents, who never wanted this for their son, never wanted him to be so unhappy. I would cry for the tattoos that I’ve had and I’ve needed to hide and the songs that I’ll never hear and my flat where I’m usually alone and for those few friends who put up with me and for the email that Jon sent to me a few days ago. For the love Rosie is unable to give me, for the love she won’t let me give back and for my broken affections, for my inability to connect. For my days that are wasted, for the time that passes so quickly and for making no contribution, for not making anyone’s life even a little bit better. I would cry because physical appearance is the most important thing there is, or so everyone makes me think anyway, and I would cry because nothing else matters apart from money, looks, objects. Cry because I look down on people based on their postcode in London where they live and based on them having a wrong haircut, or wearing the wrong sunglasses, or reading the wrong music blogs, or even worse, not reading any music blogs at all. Because I panic if my instagram picture does not have more than 40 likes and because it would freak me out if I had any fewer than five unopened tubes of toothpaste in my cabinet in my bathroom in my flat in central London at any given time or if I had less than £500,000 in my trust fund. And because despite recognising how futile all this is and how shallow and worthless I am, I can’t escape my own mind and all I want is more of the same. But I don’t cry, I can’t and that’s okay, so I get on the next tube and go home.

From there, I type ‘I can’t do this any longer. I will get away’ into my phone and send a group message to Rosie, Kelly, Adam, Michelle and my Brother before shallowing 10mg of Va**um. 20 minutes later, having received no replies, I fal asleep.”

23/01/2021

THANKSGIVING (part 1)

When we hang up I call Rosie’s mobile and Jon answers. He tells me she’s busy getting everything ready for the evening and makes a pretty average impression of somebody who’s disappointed that I can’t make it after all. I can hear Rosie shouting from the same room, asking if I’ve made an appointment with my doctor yet and saying that she’ll call me later tonight.

After 9pm I turn my phone off and go to bed. Despite not having done anything all day and without any pills, I manage to fall asleep soon after. I wake up around 4.30, 6, 8am (when I also send an email to Amish from my laptop saying I won’t make it to work again, leaving all the typos that I’ve made with my numb fingers in as a convincing touch) and finally 10.30. I’m feeling pretty much exactly as I did the day before and the numbness doesn’t seem to have progressed any further. I’m sure someone with a more optimistic nature might have taken this as a good sign.

I turn on my phone and find voicemail messages from Rosie, Adam, my Dad and Rosie again, none of which I listen to in full.

I also check my email and see a message from Kelly, sent first thing this morning from the office I guess, outlining in some detail the previous evening:

‘Good morning, are you alive?

‘First of all thanks for sending me there last night. It was lovely, if you discount the fact that no one addressed Kayla or me for the duration of the evening. Not that Kayla minded, as she spent the whole time staring lovingly at Jon even though I’m quite sure he didn’t even notice her presence there.

Your friend Adam brought along a stroppy gay character called Ray who spent most of his time alternating between looking smug and down on people. He only cheered up the few times when the others talked about him, even if it was just to mention his ridiculous eating habits (he wouldn’t eat any carbs or fat because it was after 4pm, apparently).

And seriously, what is wrong with this Tanya person? ...’

I reply immediately:

‘What the hell she did this time ? Feed me. Tell me more. Did you manage to kill her ? Where’s her body?’

03/01/2021

DAY OFF

Most people just walk past annoyed, which I respect because it’s definitely what I would have done, as a girl that I recognise because she works in my building helps me up. I reassure her that I’m fine and just tripped up and she walks off.

I make my way up the escalator carefully and ring Rosie when I come out of the station.

‘Erm, I’m not very well.’

‘Is it the numbness?’

‘Yes. It’s been getting worse. It’s moving inwards. I can’t feel my hands, I can’t feel the bottom of my legs and I just fell over.’

There’s a few seconds’ silence.

‘Where are you?’ she eventually asks.

‘I’m at Embankment. I wanted to come to work. Don’t ask why.’

‘Why?’

‘I wanted to make them feel guilty.’

‘You are mad, aren’t you? Go home. And go see a doctor.’

‘OK. I’ll do one of those things anyway.’

‘Call me when you get home.’

‘I will. Oh and, Rosie… Happy Thanksgiving.’

‘Happy Thanksgiving.’

I walk up to the Strand and get in a taxi. On the way home, I ring Kelly on his mobile. Instead of ‘Hello’ he answers with:

‘Why are you ringing me? Wait. You’re going to call in sick, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. I am sick. I’m progressively getting more numb and not just in the good way, emotionally.’

‘We’re all sick, Sonny boy. We still come into work. In any case, shouldn’t you be talking to your line manager right now instead of me?’

‘I don’t really want to speak to Amish. Can you tell him that I rang my direct line and you were the first person who picked up?’

‘Fine, fine. I’ll see you tonight.’

‘Erm, I don’t think I’ll be going. I can’t even walk very well. Did I mention that I fell over on the platform at Embankment?’

‘What? Well this is the kind of story I want to hear tonight. Don’t be a big girl and come to Rosie’s. Am I really supposed to attend a dinner with a group of people that I hardly know and you’ve brainwashed me to hate already?’

‘Yes, you should go and report back to me tomorrow. Take notes and some pictures. And try to poison Jon and that dumb bitch Tanya if possible.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. I’ll email you a bit later anyway. You enjoy your day on the sofa.’

‘Thanks, catch you later.’

‘Sonny, wait. What do you want me to tell Amish is wrong with you?’

‘What I had yesterday only worse, you idiot. Say “severe extremity numbness and tingling”. You know, the truth.’

‘Brilliant story, well done. I’ll tell our boss you can’t make it to work because you slept in the wrong position and you have a dead leg.’

‘One day you will be suffering from increasing extreme loss of feeling and no one will believe you and then we’ll see who’s laughing. I’ll talk to you later.’

I come home and I feel like doing nothing and talking to no one, which is just as well as no one gets in touch until later in the afternoon. It’s my Mum ringing my mobile so I mute the television (I’m watching a comforting Friends rerun) and pretend I’m busy at work so that I don’t have to talk for very long.

I hope that one day when I have children they treat me better than I’ve treated my parents.

31/12/2020

NO TIME TO DIE

I wake up around 7am and it takes no time to realise that I have lost all feeling in my hands up to my wrists and my feet halfway up my shins. I really can’t imagine this being the sign of anything good. I definitely don’t want to tell my parents about it, because my Mum will get on the first plane here and it’s too early in the morning to start calling people in London and panicking them with vague complaints about gradually increasing feelings of numbness.

I don’t really know what to do, so I try to get up for lack of a better plan. My steps are unsteady as I can’t feel the ground and every time I close my eyes I lose my balance. I’m starting to think that perhaps I should go see a doctor, but I get so freaked out about talking to people I don’t know on the phone that, at this point, I decide that the numbness is preferable to calling my local surgery to make an appointment. I walk to the living room very slowly, turn the TV on and sit there for the best part of the next hour trying to figure out what to do.

At 8.30 I start getting dressed, having decided that I should probably go into work. I’m not sure this is the most sensible option, but I don’t really think I can handle sitting alone in an empty flat worrying how far and how quickly this numbness will progress, especially now that I’ve put a temporary ban on my self-medicated sedation. I have to sit down on my bed to put my trousers on as I definitely don’t have enough balance to stand on one leg even for a couple of seconds, and I struggle to do my shirt buttons up as my fingers cannot feel them.

Somehow these symptoms are making me want to go to the office even more desperately, just to show off how unwell I really am. There’s no way I can convey my condition to Amish over the phone without sounding like I’m making half of it up, and I estimate that symptoms like the ones I’m dealing with could give me at least two or three days off.

I start what is usually a five-minute walk to the tube unsteadily listening to ‘You’ll Never Walk Again’ by Gene on repeat to amuse myself, feeling thankful to Steve Job for inventing a touch-screen smartphone as small buttons might have proven a little tricky right now. With every numb step that I take my choice of song seems less droll and it takes me a total of four plays to get to tube.

I go through the turnstiles at a pace that would have 100% pi**ed off the regular me if somebody else were doing it, and try to walk down the steps to the platform keeping my left hand against the wall for stability, as commuters without mobility impairments rush by me.

When the train comes, luckily and against the usual odds I manage to get a seat. I’m not really able to pick up a newspaper to read and haven’t brought my book with me for the same reason, so I’m left to watch the rest of the passengers in my carriage. I mainly focus on a young couple around my age, the girl freakishly slim and tall with almost white blonde hair and a hollow symmetrical face dressed in a City outfit and the guy overly muscular in a chunky way with shaved blonde hair and long stubble on his unwelcoming square face wearing tracksuit bottoms and a hooded top.

Both of them being physically outstanding would be a good enough reason on its own to attract anyone’s attention, but I realise as I’m trying to look at them discreetly that there’s one action the girl is currently performing, which has me completely sucked in: she’s holding his hands in hers and pulling hard skin off his palms. This reminds me that

a) I’ve never been in a relationship with anyone long enough to have reached this level of mutual comfort, and

b) if someone did this to me now, I wouldn’t be able to feel a thing. I find both of these thoughts fairly displeasing.

We get to Embankment where I have to get off and I stand up slowly, grabbing hold of every surface available as I try to walk to the door. As I step out, I lose my balance and fall down on the platform.

30/12/2020

THE SIDE EFFECTS

When I wake up after 7 on Wednesday morning I’m quite disappointed although not that surprised to notice that my fingers and feet are still absent. It’s not so much that I can’t move them or anything – I can – but they feel like an overweight person, perhaps someone like Tanya in her teenage years, has sat on them for a few hours.

It’s too early to start getting ready for work but I get out of bed anyway and try to walk around, hoping that some brisk movement might stimulate my circulation. This is as effective as yesterday’s blow-dryer plan, which leaves me to go online whilst I’m having my breakfast and look up what terrifying illnesses might present extremity numbness as a symptom. About half an hour’s worth of research later I reach the decision that it might just be a case of me overdoing it with the sedatives, so I promise myself to lay off them until at least the beginning of next week (well, maybe Sunday evening anyway) and start getting dressed.

As soon as I get to work Rosie rings me up to check how I’m doing and after I play everything down even though I’m starting to get a little bit worried now, she goes into a list of things she has to prepare today for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner, including – up to the point where I stop listening – two types of cheese, a pumpkin pie, red wines and some port chocolate balls.

When we hang up I read the email Kelly has just sent: ‘Is the Thanksgiving we’ve all been waiting for tomorrow? Even for someone like me with zero expectations, it still seems underwhelming.’ I reply asking him to check Astrology for horoscope predictions of what’s in store for us over the next couple of days and get stuck into the enviable task of putting together a client proposal for a new project.

After three hours of doing this I feel that I’ve more than earned my salary for the day and decide to terminate any work-related activities. I ask Kelly to bring me some food on the way back from his lunch break because I’m not feeling up to going out and getting anything for myself, and spend the next hour reading more about tranquiliser side effects.

I finish my day by staring at the wall for an hour or so, before taking some paracetamol and skipping the gym once again.

When I get home right after 6pm, I turn the heating on at borderline unbearable levels and get into bed in my spare bedroom. I’ve been quite concerned about not being able to fall asleep tonight without my usual self-administered sedation but I’m already feeling quite tired and trying to stop my eyes from closing through the first of three films I’m planning to watch by Christopher Nolan.

I’m woken up by a call on my landline at 7.45pm. There’s no telephone in this room, so I have to get up and answer it. I pick up the handset and say ‘Hello’ in English despite already knowing that it will be one of my parents. I mustn’t do a very good impression of somebody who’s awake because my Mum instantly says: ‘Did I wake you? What time is it?’

‘No. I was just lying down. I’m sure you know it’s before 8pm.’

‘Do you have a sore throat? You don’t sound well. Did you drink iced water again ?’

An Asian Mother always knows. How does an Asian Mother always know? Even if she’s misfiring a little bit, she still knows something’s off.

‘No, Mum. I’m perfectly fine.’

‘Are you sure? You have to take care of yourself. Make sure you drink hot water with some ginger tonight.’

‘Yes, Mum, I’m fine. You’re very insistent though. Would you like me to be sick?’

‘Son, this is a very stupid thing to say.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. Can I go back to watching my movie now?’

‘Yes,’ she says, before calling me ‘my little child’. ‘I just wanted to hear your voice.’

Astrology.com provides free daily horoscopes, online tarot readings, psychic readings, Chinese astrology, Vedic Astrology, Mayan Astrology, Numerology, Feng Shui, zodiac 101, sun sign compatibility and video horoscopes.

24/12/2020

THE BEGINNING OF DRAMA

At the gym, as I’m getting changed into shorts and a t-shirt I watch some guy around my age come out of the shower with a towel around his waist, walk to the mirror, pick up the blow-dryer and dry his hair then bend down and point the hair-dryer up inside the towel to also blow-dry his k**b.

This looks inspiring and gives me the idea that perhaps I should blow hot air onto my feet and hands –which still have no feeling –just in case I bring them back to life, which I proceed to do with no effect.

I walk into the main gym to the free-weights area and pick up some dumbbells to hold whilst I’m doing lunges, but every lunge forward that I take feels awkward and uncertain with the soles of my feet being almost completely numb. I decide that this isn’t a great day for the gym, so I quickly give up and head back home.

On the tube I listen to new Taylor Swift/ Bon Iver duet but too embarrassed to admit it so i apply the same old trick of clicking Next right before the song comes to an end so that my Spotify year end wrapped up doesn’t give her any play counts because I don’t think she deserves them and when I get home I order some food in, give Rosie, Mum and Dad quick calls (I mention my symptoms to her but not to my parents as I suspect they would only panic) take 10mg of Va**um – no messing around tonight – and get into bed right after 9pm.

18/12/2020

I’M A SLAVE FOR YOU

I leave the office at 5.31pm to go to the gym. When I am making my way down from 6th to the ground floor, an incident happens as per below:

I stand in the lift watching the doors close until the very last minute this girl jumps in and barks ‘2nd’ at me, treating me like s**t, using me just to serve her purpose, reducing me to the role of a lift boy, not saying ‘please’ or even looking at me, but I’m actually getting a kick out of this, I’m lapping it all up and I don’t expect a thanks in return, because the girl is hot, hotter than anyone ever seen in this wretched building that I work in.

So for the next, what is it … six seconds, I’m glancing at her sideways and in my head she looks back at me and grabs me and forces a kiss on my lips, a kiss that I can’t resist, a kiss that’s leaving me weak in the knees, a kiss that redefines me in that moment as just a slave of her eternal beauty but it’s also making me want to push her away, I’m not just an outlet for her urges, I’m a man dammit, but I know if I lose her kiss, her embrace, I’ll fade away, this is vital to me now, there’s nothing I can do anyway, she throws me against the mirror, her hands on...

And then the doors open, we’re on the 2nd floor where she gets off, never to be seen again.

17/12/2020

SOMETHING SINISTER

I finally get to the office about twenty-five minutes late with my fingers and feet still slightly numb, even though I’ve spent the best part of the last hour inside overly warm tunnels underground.

I walk through the revolving glass doors, take the lift up to the 6th floor, lower my eyes to the floor and walk to my desk. The beginning of a good day is one where no one says ‘Good morning’ from the moment I enter the building to the moment I sit on my chair. Today has been awesome so far.

I reply to the following email that Kelly has just sent: ‘How are you? I don’t want to kill anyone today yet. I suppose this is as good as it gets.’

‘Morning. I took Xanax and Va**um last night and was in bed by 10pm and I still feel exhausted but at the same time oddly serene. I imagine it’s similar to when one receives such a beating that they can no longer pull themselves up from the ground and simply surrender and take comfort in the sensation of blood dripping down the side of their face and the warmth of their swollen limbs on the cold concrete floor.’

‘Wow that seems very deep- since when you turn into a poet Sonny boy ? I’m actually quite envious. I hope I have that sensation by 4pm at the latest. Meanwhile, I was playing around with my iPhone Siri this morning and asked it to “Play Jazz”. Instead it started calling Jas the big boss. Thought it best you were made aware.’

‘I’m scared. Regardless, I’m going to test just how clever it is by ordering: “Call the love of my life,” “Call the person who wants to kill me most,” “Call the human incarnation of Satan on my address book.” If the numbers it dials following those instructions are – in order – Rosie, Jon and Tanya, we’ll know something sinister is going on.’

A few hours later, at lunchtime, I’m going to Urban Outfitters, searching for a T-shirt which says ‘I f**ked Paris Hilton’- which obviously cannot be found and will not be found in a shop in Covent Garden selling pretentious hipster merchandise. But I cannot give up, I will not give up in my pursuit of the T-shirt, I will get them even if it takes the life out of me.

Around 1.15pm I give up, buy a second-hand white cricket jumper with a stain at the front and go back to work.