Who needs a job when you can blog?

So, I lost my job just over a week ago. I am officially unemployed. I've been to the Job Center and everything. Boohoo, I know. 

But fear not, reader. This post is not going to be an airing of my own incredulity at the current economic climate. Nor a long wanking, indigent, self-pity-fest (see above post). No, on the contrary, in fact I feel that - at the slight risk of sounding clichéd, and much more serious risk of just sounding like a massive twat - I've been given a gift. The gift of time. 

Time, firstly, to do all the things normal people do that got neglected while I was working long and unpredictable hours; Things like washing behind my ears and other hard-to-reach places, dealing with seemingly bottomless piles of laundry of such awe-inspiring grandeur it's almost sublime; and shopping for, and cooking REAL FOOD. It won't be just a lunchtime sausage roll and a sandwich from Greggs for me anymore, but homemade soups, stews, cakes, bread, scones! Things that take love and patience and care to create. I'm even going to make fucking jam! Jam: a culinary realm whose dark art has hitherto been the reserve (or should that be preserve?) of old women at church bake sales. I'm taking them on. Because I've got time.  

I've got the time to exercise my mind: spending the morning over coffee and a crossword, or spending hours over an extended game of chess. I can work through all the unread books on my shelf I've been meaning to read for months. I've now got the time to shoot the breeze and chew the fat and cud with my fellow man, or publican, depending on where the sun is relative to the yardarm. We can discuss the whys and wherefores of existence. We will contemplate "What ifs..." and "Why nots..." and put the world to rights. It will be all masticating, ruminating and cogitating, like a Mastechef final of life! And I will be Lloyd Grossman!...erm...Because I've got TIME!  

Anyway, I'd better wrap this up, my Domino's pizza has just arrived and Deal or No Deal isn't going to watch itself.

D