Drinking alone.

In a yates wine bar. At 5.38 in the morning. Go me.

Boredom

Birmingham Airport eh? Lovely place to spend 5 hours of your life, unable to sleep. Still, at least they have the interweb so I can bore you with sleep-deprived drivel for 10p a minute. I've run out of people to text, and unsurprisingly, no one's answering. I suppose it is 25 to four on a Thursday morning.

Still, I can think of worse places to be stranded waiting for a festive flight home. Like Stansted. At the risk of sounding all American-touristy, the people here are so friendly! Very weird, you don't quite realise the "London thing" until you're spoken to politely by a 17 yr old youth in Starbucks at half past two in the morning. I actually felt he cared.

The other weird thing is that now, as the airport starts to wake up, it is no longer just me and the 25 or so other vagrants who I've been staring at since 1am - other people are arriving and the place is taking on a semblance of normality. And I'm actually getting a bit defensive. Go away! This is my airport! Stop getting in the way and making me queue for stuff and talking excitedly to one another!

I think I'm in the early stages of sleep deprivation combined with the Guinness I had before leaving London finally wearing off. So far this evening I have had a latte, read Maxim from cover to cover (took about 15 minutes. Although I did get a free soft porn dvd with it - here's hoping they have to search my bag going through security), had 2 fags, finished off reading the Confederacy of Dunces (and actually was rooting for the lead character by the end - no mean feat), bought another, larger latte and topped it off with a 2 day old re-heated panini from Starbucks. Ho, ho, feckin ho. But for some reason I am not half as depressed as I normally get whilst travelling. I think there's something odd about being about in the twilight zone - I kind of like it. Now, there are noisy check in announcements and kids and people with brummie accents everywhere and babies whinging. As Ignatius J Reilly would say, I can feel my valve tightening.

I hoped that at least a pub might be open for me to soothe the pain / make me unfit for flying, but apparently they have some degree of decorum here and only Spar is selling stuff. Mind you, with the fog the way it is, I may well yet be spending Christmas here, so best not to peak too early. A Wetherspoons boil in the bag sausage and mash would make a particularly fine turkey dinner-replacement. Just hold the peas.

There's something slightly annoying about paying premium rate fees for internet access and then not being able to look at naughty pictures.

I think I may have drunk too much coffee judging by my waffling, and have certainly written enough that I very much doubt anyone will still be reading this sentence. So, in summary, blah blah blah-did-de-blah-blah. This is the problem with travelling for me. I am forced to spend many hours alone with only my inner voice for company - and now the wonderful world of blogging gives you a scary insight into the inane ramblings that plague me when I'm not in the company of others. You think I talk shit? I hope this entry assures you that my thoughts go through a distilling process that master whisky makers would be proud of before being allowed to develop into statements.

Anyway, I had a lovely last few days in London before arriving at this point; my work is left unfinished with a storm awaiting me upon my return (deadline? what's a deadline?); I had a great night out yesterday with the polish massive and the ex-pat brigade; saying cheerio to the young lovely was a bit of a wrench this evening but hopefully she'll like the present I bought her enough to banish any pervy thoughts of Pharrell Williams from her mind after she saw him at the Academy tonight.

A text message! Woo! From my mum. Bless her. I think she's worried I'll fall asleep and miss my flight. I might not reply to wind her up.

Or I might pace the terminal again and have another fag and another latte.

Peace and goodwill to all, I hope Santa comes and empties his sack all over your living room, and you have a very merry and caffeine free Christmas.

tatt x

Birmingham international airport, 1.44am

Only 5 hrs til my flight leaves. I love christmas travel

The phenomenon taking the world by storm

After "Mo-vember" in New Zealand, my friend Helen has attracted my attention to this:

http://www.bearduarybelfast.com/

The world's gone facial hair crazy....

The London Paper

never got back to me to even acknowledge that they had printed my column or that I had received positive feedback. There have been mutterings from my friends that the text vote is merely a cunning ruse with which to fleece people of their hard earned pennies. I must say it does seem that way.

Mind you, with all this "paper 2.0" style of journalism happening at the moment (the London Paper has "the columnist", London Lite has "top of the blogs") it's little wonder that papers are happy to use free content from its army of readers. Saves £17k a year of a journo's wage, doesn't it? Let's face it, after the initial excitement of seeing my name in print and the fact that people (at least to my face) quite liked it, I am faced with two choices:

1) call it a day there and then
2) write another column for the paper in the hope that it is published again, thereby filling another chunk of otherwise empty, meaningless (i.e. written by someone else) page.

Win-win for the paper - there'll always be a clutch of people like me eager to write in, in the hope of getting "discovered"... It's kind of like a very slow, laborious X Factor for wannabe journalists. Or people with the misguided impression that their opinion is of interest to the great British public, and in need of an ego massage. Like, erm, me.

Bloggers, eh?

"Ninety per cent of the people who read your blog live within six miles of your computer. The other 10% read it on your computer."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1971858,00.html

Tiredness

another busy weekend almost over, but not quite, as I sit here awaiting chucking out time in the Prince Albert and the appearance of my young lovely.... Started off on Frtiday with Christmas drinks in Browns in Covent Garden with my team (couldn't afford the meal), continued through attempting to watch Goodbye Lenin on dvd, a bit of Christmas shopping, a great afternoon/night in the White Horse last night and then an early start to spend an hour in the company of 300 over-excited toddlers at "The Gruffalo live" this morning. I'm not weird, I had my four year old nephew (and his mum) down for the day as part of his chrissie pressie. Made the mistake of trying to take him into Hamleys for him to look round. We managed a very slow lap of the ground floor before making a meandering bolt for the exit again. Regent Street's lights were a hit though.

All of which has left me feeling a little bit pooped. And knowing that, rather than winding down in my last 3 pre-xmas days at work, I am going to be working like a bee-atch to get new reports rolled out before January, whilst feeling like I've had porridge syringed into my head in place of my brain. But what's the alternative? Tell my girlfriend she can't come round? What kind of idiot do you think I am?!

100% More!!!!!

Get in there! Ok, so it was quite obviously just my mates who voted for me in the newspaper, but as my mate Rich pointed out tonight, no one said I was boring.

I'm not sure who he/she is, but I need to find "Flo" and buy him/her a pint... There, nestled in the letters page, was the snazzily titled "Tony Edgar is the best columnist I've read".

You can see the full letter (plus text result at the bottom of today's columnist) here

If my ego swells any more, I may get stuck in the door.

Drink destroys lives

It also makes for an amusing friday night

what can I get from my mum for Christmas?

I'm stuck.

I'm kind of famous! Again!

Obviously the London Paper doesn't get many contributors to its "columnist" section, as they've printed my submission!!

I'm officially a published journalist now! I can think of at least three real ones I know who might disagree with that comment, but it'll do for me.

Check it out:
http://www.thelondonpaper.com/cs/Satellite/london/talk/article/1157142959810?packedargs=aid%3D1157142959810%26suffix%3DArticleController

Feel free to vote "more" by the way, by texting 88855 and saying "more Tony" or something - basically they print a "more" or "bore" poll result on Monday as to whether people liked what they read.

The biggest shock is that there's already a random comment left on the website saying that the girl "loves it". So Lorna, whoever you are, thank you. Of course, it could be might be my mate from Glasgow....

Pity it's on a Friday in a way - of the 425,000 readers, I reckon at least 424,000 are probably down the pub and not reading the paper! But am chuffed they printed it.

I might get an anonymous blog

Those of you who know me well know I am rarely bashful when it comes to disclosing what goes on in my personal life. However, some of it is not the kind of thing I could honestly say to you sober, and certainly not the kind of thing I'd want my mum to read*.

So I think I might start an anonymous blog to disclose the slightly more embarrassing things I experience. Only problem is, who would even know it was there?

*Don't worry mum, I've probably accidentally told you it all when I've been pissed anyway

I'm drinking Tyskie

In an attempt to immerse myself in all things Polish, I bought some lager from the shop this evening. It's 5.6%. And really rather nice.

Lee - a.k.a. Wattie187

Remember how i promised to thank everyone who sponsored me? No, neither did I....

Lee (left, mohican, with my mate Fliss) is next up on the list, who I saw just over a week ago when he and his dear fiancee invited me round for dinner. Yes, he is the one-and-the-same man who is making an honest woman of my friend Helen.

We had a lovely time when I was back in Norn Irn, getting a bit pissed, talking shit, and (in my case) having a crash course in metal (Lee - forgive me if this is not the genre you're into). The dvd went on, bands with names like "Slayer" ranted forth, and Lee explained why it's not all just noise. I have to say I was really interested - when we were in Roskilde together him and his mates were heading off for the more hardcore bands while I hung around with some of the girls to see effeminate indie groups. It's good to gain an appreciation for new things, and if you've ever checked out his blog, you'll know that Lee is an able teacher.

I couldn't ask for a nicer bloke to be stealing my mate Helen from the ranks of singledom - from the moment I met him I liked him, and would class him as a mate now even though, Rosklide excluded, we've maybe only met a handful of times.

But I tend to gauge fellow males on how I'd get on with them down the pub, and I could quite happily be stranded in a bar under a snowdrift for a couple of days (like that old Labbatts advert where Malcolm the Mountie had to lower beer down through the chimney) with Lee and still be gutted when they dug us out.

Cheers mate, roll on the big day.

I've been thinking of changing the blog

to a new stylee.... although I've become quite attached to this format over the last few months.

What do you reckon? Maybe it's time for a change - I'm 29 now, maybe I should go for a more mature image. Perhaps I'll cycle through the available options to an untrained html-er (i.e. all the default settings) over the next little while and hold a kind of "blog idol" with you, the voting public, deciding on the outcome. Or maybe, like so much else in my life, I'll not bother and then forget about it eventually.

My "beard". Pathetic

and no more, after a somewhat less than emphatic reception from the girlfriend.

Possibly because I look like a smug prick in every photo I attempted to take of it.

Woot!

I've just got a big ole cheque via internal mail from our "corporate conscience" department - an additional £500 for my sponsorship! This brings the grand final total to a whopping £1075.01!!!!

Thanks again everyone, any last minute guilty consciences can still pop over to http://www.justgiving.com/tonyedgar before 22 December to pledge some cash.

I sit opposite our communications manager, who is hatching a fiendish plan to embarrass me in the staff magazine. Aw shucks, I would hate that!

I'm kind of famous

Not really. But my friend Murray, the enfant terrible of the digital marketing world, used my blog as an example in a presentation at work the other day. Apparently the fact I post stuff from my mobile is quite cool - the garlic bread of the technological world in fact.

I'm pretty sure he didn't mention the £80 phone bills I'm stuck with though.

Reasons not to bathe drunk with a pumice stone

Laid Back

With my mind on my money (or lack of) and my (lack of) money on my mind.

Am very drunk on Tanqueray Gin, but also have just had a lovely bath and ripped my fragile skin apart with a pumice stone, trying to get the nicotine patch stickiness offa me. I now have no stickiness, just four bright red raw areas, which even the "magic cream" (aka my mum's Sudacreme) has failed to help. In fact it made me sting like a beeatch.

Anyway, well done Matt Willis, for winning I'm a Celebrity; unlucky to Myleene Klass who I thought was a fanny but appears to be quite lovely; well done to Ian and Jane from Eastenders for securing the award for best comedy scene this year. I'm still undecided as to whether they were trying to be serious or funny, but I must confess I wet myself the whole way through their "deep and meaningful" this evening.

I'm tool drunk to type, I need to get back to finding a pic of Britney with nae keks on....