And now we're going to start putting stuff up. Stuff like this....

CHAPTER ONE – Charity Begins At Home


So I was sitting at home, thinking. Glossy magazines are full of these "Things You Should Do Before You're 40" type articles and, you know, it's always the usual… Driving a Porsche into a brothel, hanging out in a jeans shop in Churchill Square, going across the Sahara on a bike… things like that. Sahara, Schmahara, most of them I've done but there’s one thing they say I should have done that I haven't: the mid-life crisis. And I should. It's such a classic experience, such a classic thing to do that I really should try and fit it in. I'm at that mid-life stage and these things require planning and precision. Now’s the time to change ends at half time. Sit down and have an orange. Look back and where I’d been. Consider tactics for the way forward. Maybe I should start thinking about it.

I looked at Maxwell Wolf. He looked at me. What is it with dogs? There’s all that unconditional love that everyone goes on about, but there’s also that look. You know, the look that says “What’s so difficult? You get a ball, get someone to throw it… It’s not complicated.” Sometimes I think he’s a real soul brother. Other times he’s a heartless bastard.

Anyway. Now this is the curious thing. Just as I had this idea, Lord Newspaper phoned me up and… and this is the spookiest thing. He told me that he'd had the same idea himself. The very same idea.

"Fancy that", I said when he told me. "You're going to jack in your job, your livelihood, just to experience this thing called mid-life crisis. Just like me! Talk about two hearts beating as one", I said. "We can go down that spiral together, crawl the bookies and take up art, start drinking and become a novelist, create bespoke furniture out of driftwood for fashionistas... We can do this together. I'll get the wood, you get the nails!”

"Ah", said Lord Newspaper. "That's not exactly what I meant. What I meant was that maybe you should experience this on your own. I think you should stop doing this job of yours and see how you get on."

The penny dropped. "What will it be?" I said laughing at the synchronicity of it all. "A double-page feature? No, better. Maybe a three-part series, an expose on mid-life crises today. How having a mid-life crisis can bring on a mid-life crisis! We could open the spread with a double page picture of me sitting on the beach, looking out to sea dreamily."
“Not quite what I meant” he said.

“You’re right. I need to do this properly” I said. “I'm a proper bloody journalist, old school. The school of hard knocks. Trained at The University Of Life, that's me. A method journalist, the Lee Strasberg of the pen.”

And I am the perfect man for the job. You've got to give Lord Newspaper credit for that. We’ve not been together that long, but he knows his man. If there's anyone who can legitimately experience not working, I am that man. Like Dumbo in that Disney film “Dumbo”, this is a part that was written for me.

"Listen", said Lord Newspaper. "That's not exactly what I meant either. Times are hard in the newspaper game and we're having to make a few cutbacks and..."

Fuck it. I was going to leave anyway.