But that’s not the main reason I’ve never been tempted to go skiing: it’s the people. The moment anyone tells me they’re going skiing, I start to dislike them. This is because I’ve constructed my own imaginary version of a skiing holiday in my head: it involves a fistful of self-satisfied bastards called Dan and Izzy and Sam and Lucy sharing a chalet together, drinking wine while listening to Mark Ronson on Izzy’s iPod speakers, taking 15,000 photos of each other guffawing and pulling silly faces, and occasionally venturing outside to slide down a hill on a pair of glorified planks, at which point with any luck they hurtle headlong into a tree, snapping at least three limbs in the process, and the holiday ends with them lying on their back, twitching like a half-crushed spider, exposed shards of shinbone gleaming in the winter sun as they scream for an air ambulance at the top of their idiot lungs.
Hurrah for Charlie Brooker.
He’s furious because he quit smoking for the twentieth time. I’m furious because whatever passes for normal, healthy sleep patterns have passed me by and I’m currently living like a cross between a shift worker and an elderly cat, sleeping at random times, not eight hours during the night, just as and when I happen to be standing near my bed and conveniently go catatonic before collapsing onto the thing and rolling around in my own sweat for four hours if I’m lucky.
I’m furious at the lack of sleep, furious at the bloody awful tourists around here who respond to Mr Duch the armless bookseller’s friendly ‘hello how are you?’ with a blank expression, furious at the three dogs from the house opposite mine that only wake up a few times a day to go and tear another weaker dog limb from limb, furious at myself for being so utterly utterly shite at getting on with my course work, furious at my rubbish beard, furious at the hopelessly crappy shower in my bathroom that is not unlike standing under a micturating concrete cherub, and furious that you just can’t get decent milk anywhere on this side of the planet.
Fuckety fuckety fuckety fuck. Pardon.
No apology necessary. Personally, I’m a seething mass of repressed furiousity – some of the time – it depends on my energy levels. Before long, I’ll be yelling oaths in public. I anticipate a cathartic sense of release, and a degree of gratification from seeing the expressions on the faces of any wet-behind-the-ears chavs who might be in the vicinity. They think they invented invective. When grey-haired old ladies start shouting FUCK! people take notice. The last time I told off a litter lout and made him pick up his fag packet, he jumped.
With me, it’s pain that makes me crabby. Bloody arthritis! I get angrier when anyone tells me to calm down. Anger is good, as long as you don’t kill anyone.
Hope you get some sleep soon.