Rita Hayworth

I was made redundant in August 2009 and, although this event was potentially the best thing ever to have happened, I seem to have carried around a feeling of being 'unhomed' ever since, a bit like Morgan Freeman in 'Shawshank Redemption' after he gets released and sort of wanders about being fitful and moody before finally seeing sense and going off to claim that massive wad of brick-bound wonga (sorry if you haven't seen it).

Anyway, the truth has gradually dawned. I've been institutionalised. Somewhere between 1979 and 2009, in offices old and new with colleagues young and mature, by bus, train, car and (unmemorably) bicycle, I strayed into waters of mediocrity and dropped anchor. It's easy to see things as they are when you're not aboard any more, staring into those murky depths and wondering if there's anything worth fishing for or whether you should just carry on basking, with just the need for an occasional steadying hand on the tiller. Becalmed, I think, is the word. But in a nice, sleepwalky way that allows you to still watch the kids grow up and visit Disneyworld.

But quite a few things about being a citizen of home are to be savoured. The daytime dogs, for instance, first heard when walking to the shop for a newspaper the other day. A forlorn bark, rising on a querulous note, the doggy equivalent of 'why hast thou forsaken me?' It was soon answered by another. In a different house, another dog wailed 'woe is me'. And so this contest of misery played out to the empty streets. I imagined spinsters and retirees behind closed doors, as unmindful to this caterwauling as the residents of suburban Heathrow to theirs. I wondered what it would take for them to notice. Maybe if cats and other pets were encouraged to join in and give a revolutionary voice to their abandonment?

"I could help those dogs. Wait, I have time now - I want a dog," was my first thought. "Maybe I'll write a poem about it instead," was my second. Naturally I haven't done either.

Introducing...

Hello. Socks, paper and Rizlas are important components of modern life. You might think that's a stupid thing to say, but it does at least provide me with a snappy, if weakish bit of wordplay for a title. In that sense, I suppose, it satisfies the impulse to be original too. How do you tell if ideas are original these days? Google em? Yeah, that's it. Then if the search terms don't yield a million hits, or drag you into a frenzy of click-thrus and adsense, you've cracked it. That said, I haven't googled Sock, Paper, Rizlas yet. I'll leave that to you if you want. The truth is, it took me at least five minutes to think it up and I can't quite countenance the thought of it already having been claimed by some Sun reading lesbian who never gets out of bed and tells everyone who'll listen how 'blazed' they always are.

Ideas are fickle, though, aren't they? When you're walking around or driving down the motorway they're all there, like mongrel pups, clamouring at their mother's languid pap. What if snow was blue? What if an albatross could communicate by winking? How successfully could an entire cast of penguins pull off the musical HMS Pinafore, given limitless amounts of optimism and training? Meditative contemplation? You've had it mate. There's no such thing as the quiet mind. As soon as you get a minute to yourself, the floodgates seem to open. But how many times have you reached for a pen after such bolts of inspiration, only to find the car/toilet/motorway bridge bereft of such luxury? Those ideas evaporated and were forgotten because we simply didn't have time. Well now I do. Time to consider and sort the correct matched pairing of a sock, to read a paper from cover to cover instead of just front page and Sports, to roll a herbal cigarette of perfect  conical shape instead of a hastily rumpled windsock Because, like many others subsumed in the turdy spume of this global economic tsunami, I am - dun-dun-DUNNN 'Redundant Man'.

So expect to see bits and bobs of opinion and discovery. Random recycled forum posts from wayoftherodent, for when I can't be bothered. Articles, poems and flash fiction. Snatches of screen and radio plays, maybe a memoir or two, all hopefully enlightening in much the same way that Socks, paper and Rizlas can be. Or not.