I'm sitting dipping Shrewsbury biscuits in my tea wondering. I'm wondering just how much is for the taking. I could, or should be working but I don't feel much like doing that right now - conquering my blogger's block seems to have taken priority.

I have heard my father say that if he could go back 20 years he'd kill it all, now at the age where he is ready to seek solice in a dram, maybe sail around the world, do what he does, only for fun, write another musical or a cult novel - he can't, at least not to the full extent that I'm sure he'd like to. He still has to work to survive, that's just the way it is. What I'm getting at is the if only I knew then what I know now - he'd have been a wealthy man with more time on his hands, he has learned, and is still learning how to get things done efficiently. I have no idea, Learmonts are late starters. It's not that I want to carry on doing what I'm doing now anyway but this is what I have chosen to do, for now.

There is a great story the chef Marco Pierre White has to tell in his book White Heat. He tells us that as a commis chef, a new recruit in a kitchen, his head chef asked him to shell three boxes of peas. He asked the head chef if he knew what three boxes of shelled peas looked like. When the head chef replied that he didn't, Marco shelled one box and threw the other two away. Marco always knew he was better than shelling peas. So, how much is for the taking?

I have been offered a new position so I had my CV put forward for consideration. Social engineering really is a vital component to getting closer to what ever it is you want. Shmoozers win. The role has yet to be defined which makes for a bigger and better claim to stake. The possibility of a permanent position looks all the better; free health, dentistry, training of my choice, subsidies all over the place is what I'm really after - I need to spend some time on me, putting a lot more thought into my lifestyle.

Phil has cancelled his tennis, now before you imagine a public schoolboy Hugh Grant type chump poncing about in his pink sweater playing tennis, Homer heffalumping it around the court flailing and cursing is more what the picture is like. So we are off to the Belgian bar in Clarkenwell - straight to the source, well closer to it at least. You can expect to find me hanging from the bar tap like a suckling pig not wanting to let go. There goes getting over blogger's block! Small wonder writers have a penchant for booze.