• After a tortured night I awake full of determination.
    I review my position, and consider with circumspect gravity my inner strength.
    My new job demands much, and I eat my breakfast whilst wearing a serious and adult expression.
    I suck the hot coffee with a professionally pained mouth, and flip the pages of my broadsheet nonchalantly.
    I swoop back up the stairs in my towelling dressing-gown, and fling open my wardrobe in a manner which I assume to be casual and easy.
    My suit hangs in front of me, full of nothing. It is up to me to fill it with myself.
    I pull on the trousers, and carefully fold my p***s behind the zip, fastening the button with what I hope is a manly grin.
    I tuck my shirt into the trousers, and spend some time with my understated tie.
    My jacket feels slightly small under my arms, but it is nothing anyone would notice.
    I wonder what my new workmates will be like, and fantasise briefly about the relationships I may possibly enjoy with other members of the organisation.
    I glance once again at my digital watch, and decide that I am ready.
    I pull on my coat, check that I have my keys, and walk out of the front door, slamming it firmly behind me.
    I stand outside, looking blankly ahead, realising I don't have a new job at all.
    /////////////////
    I am driving a fast car along the beautiful cliffs that line the road between London and Brighton. My mind is aflame with lust. To my left gleams the azure Mediterranean, while on my right the chalk cliffs flash in the sunlight.
    I am increasingly worried as the car gathers speed, as it seems that my brakes have been sabotaged. Faster and faster, the cliffs flick past. I am forced to do some clever manouvering until I skillfully skid to a halt in Brighton, where my lover awaits, resplendent in a velvet-lined apartment overlooking the shingle beach. We engage in inventive sexual games while hooligans roam the wet streets below us.///

    PIGS COME AND GO BUT MUD IS FOREVER
    Accidentally, I am a guest of some sort at a shabby farm. My host is a curious elderly man with a fascination for anthropology. As soon as I arrive, he regales me with stultifying tales of his years as an explorer and ethnographer. It is all I can do to stay awake. There are two other guests at the farm, a large, big-boned man and his boyfriend, a man with an expensive haircut. Two days pass, and I am sitting on the dilapidated veranda with the big-boned man, drinking gin.
    Our host shuffles over from one of the barns, and invites us to come and meet a man who thinks he is a pig. Intrigued, we put down our gins and follow to the barn. After our eyes adjust to the dim light, we find ourselves in a disgusting, reeking sty. In the gloom, we make out a man covered with mud and excrement, snuffling loudly in the steaming straw. He looks at us, grins broadly, and grunts several times. Our host tells us that the pig-man likes us. We settle down on the filthy ground and watch as the pig-man start to fling mud about. My big-boned companion seems quite taken with the idea of becoming a pig as he hurriedly removes his shirt and grabs a handful of mud. As lumps of stinking matter fly perilously close, I decide to make a hurried exit. I effect my egress, and emerge blinking in the daylight outside. Wiping spatters of slime from my person, I return to my gin, shaking my head and wondering how on Earth I always end up surrounded by lunatics and maniacs of one sort or another.
    Later that evening, drinking yet more gin and watching the setting sun, I am set upon by the man with the costly hair, who accuses me of leading his boyfriend astray. He screams to me that his once-polite partner now believes he is a pig, and then commences a vigorous and sustained physical attack.
    Needless to say, I cut my 'holiday' short and return to my room in the city. There I brood on the nature of relaxation, and the fact that my recuperative powers are perhaps deformed in some horrible way
    these tips should help you get by///skip_skip_//end of message..._