The rule of thumb is that one year working in the internet business is roughly equivalent to ten human years. Don't ask where that statistic came from. Not out of an actuarial table that's for sure. Exaggeration? I'll leave that to you to decide. No, that's simply just how it seems some days. My bones creak, my eyes ache, my ears ring, my fingers, mere stumps, why not? After all, I've got six years under my belt already.

There are times when I feel a kinship with those aged, venerable and gnarled Galapagos Turtles, clambering slowly through the raucous surf before resting immobile on the beach; emblems from a time before recorded time. All around them people stand in awe, thinking, wondering, why if only these vastly old creatures could talk, then what stories they must have. Indeed, what stories we have. But we're mute sadly, or it could be we simply are n't fluent in the right language, so no one hears our stories, our cautions. And it's the past that get's repeated. The past mistakes, by the way.

Sadness only needs a few words to announce itself. I think I heard some of the saddest today. Six austere, plain words, with a collective and depthless potency far beyond their individual simplicity - "I can't make you love me". How hard is that for any of us to realise, let alone say. It's the voice of a desolate heart speaking. The clouds have shifted and now it's clear, that a cherished hope can go no further, it's too deep in the sand of someone else's indifference, their reluctance, their obstinacy, or just their wish to keep things on a cooler heat.

These words sneaked into me one by one, fragments of a song playing very softly in a bookshop. I wish knew who the singer was, even the name of the song. This is almost the oath of membership for a club no one wants to be a member of.

Men and sheds and Men and lists are two subjects I stay away from. Supposed to be elements of maledom. Really? I aim to keep clear of them. Sheds are alien to me, have never played any part in my life. There was no way they could anyway in my early days; born in a council flat in the North of England, no garden, there was no oppportunity. Nor have I ever hankered to stay for hours on end in a small wooden box, even if it does have a door and windows. What's the point? Even moles come out for air.

Lists are the same. I don't see any reason for anyone to carefully, in my eyes pedantically, itemise their top ten albums, top fifty cars, top anything. Nick Hornby fetished this behaviour, so for a while, in the bizarre and overexcited manner that only media hype can attain, list making actually became fashionable. Why? Still is in some magazines. Top thirty things to do before you're thirty. This is n't fun, it's prescriptive, do this, do that. Not too good for anyone with anxiety either "I've not done these yet....why? Something's wrong! ".

Don't think I'm fundamentalist on this point, I do myself actually have a list - it's not top ten style, though. Not anywhere as dramatic. It's the stuff I really need to do, that I should n't forget, must not forget; pole position, right at the top is "remember to go to work", and straight underneath that is " stay awake, it's only eight hours." You can understand these are important. If I think about, that's not even a list, it's really a set of exhortations. It's do this or tie a knot in my hankerchief.

I have, because it's known that I'm a keen reader, been asked by many people, which of all the books I've read are my favourites. List like, don't you think. I shy away from that, not the way a woodland animal withdraws before the sound of humans, no, more basic, I can't do it. It's as if I've been questioned on the shape of a snowflake, one from last year as well. Impossible. Books can't be listed. They're about the mood they evoke; the drama of the writing; distinct, defined characters with unruly, uncommon, unusual inner lives; prose that has to be copied into a commonplace book because of the sheer elegance of the writing. It's about externals: what was happening at the time you cracked open the pages and settled into reading it; about where you where, who you were with, or were n't. Is there anything harder to classify and sort into priorities?

Still, if I'm pressed, been button-holed by someone who really will not take no as answer, then I'll put forward one book that I've enjoyed immensely, mainly because it's hit all the buttons. Herzog by Saul Bellow. Been in and out of that for over twenty - five years. It's a book I enjoy, not the top of any list.

Strange that you don't notice things until they've almost gone. Sad. Odd, too, when you finally recognise what it is that's actually disappearing and right in front of your eyes. I had that "awakening" whilst I was walking in the area where I live. I suddenly realised that nearly all the launderettes had closed. Accepted that for some people this probably does n't mean anything; for me, it does, and it's not just that a local business has fallen by the wayside, there's more in there, personal, social as well.

The morning, or on occasions, the evening, at the launderette was a regular event during my early years in London. I had a tiny bedsit, with room enough for a bed, a table and chair, along with a semblance of a kitchen - two gas rings and a fridge that hummed and clunked. Nothing else in there. No more space. So that was it, walk to the nearest launderette with a bagful of coins. I must have read thousands of books sat on a hard wooden bench, lulled by the sound of the machines turning round and round, or patiently waiting for a dryer to come free.

After a few years, I bought somewhere, and a few years after doing that, when I still trudged to the launderette (could n't quite break the near tradition I'd fallen into for one thing along with a dire shortage of money for another), I bought a washing machine. Today, the launderette is an alien experience. In that personal sense, which I mentioned earlier, it's a stage in my life marked as over.

In those early days, there were countless people like me, living in similar rooms, having to to make the same commitment to the local laundry. What happened to all of us is the consequence of a changing demographic as much as it is a tale of personal evolution. Simply this. Bedsitland disappeared. Today it might as well be talked about in the same way as Lyonesse is. It's that relevant. Bricks and mortar have transformed their mundane state to become currencies. Those houses which were once chopped and diced into small rooms, each with it's own tenant - gone. All rebuilt and rewoven into beautiful, elegant apartments. Nothing there any longer to support the local launderettes. No need for them.

This is n't intended to be an elegy. Things change, that's life.

I don't think I've ever seen so many pregnant women in the City as I have recently. It struck me a couple of days ago, walking past St Paul's on my way to Fleet Street. There were hale and hearty bumps on every corner, crossing every street; it was wonderful to see.

But the profusion, what happened four or five months ago? Something did, strong enough, or to be cheesy about it, potent enough, to change countless lives forever. Traditionally I might have erred towards some big sporting success. Thinking about it logically that can't be the case, much of this has got to have origins earlier than this year's World Cup. Then there's this: big sporting victory equals celebration equals drunkeness. And it's the same ritualised behaviour when events go into reverse and it's a big sporting defeat. Yep, this all means one thing: an incapable man...

Where did the four or five months estimate come from? Me guessing really. I know when a bump is nearly touching the ground, it's time for me to rip off my shirt and tear it into pieces, while someone else shouts for hot water. Well, that's what men always do at these times in the Westerns. So, if the bump is kind of at a right angle, maybe that's half way there?

Plenty of gas and air remember. No, not for you future mums...for your panic stricken, sweating partner instead. You're going to be fine. Happy Birth Days to all of you.

Damned with faint phrase? Who cares. Get to a certain time in your life and you'll take both and ask no questions. Like me today. Someone told me that I was in good shape for a man my age. I'm north of forty by the way, not that far, nearly midpoint.

Anyway, I heard the first part, and preened inwardly; the depth charge came a few seconds later, with the last part of the sentence. For a moment, I became Methuselah, wizened, haggard, yes...ancient. But did n't they say I was in good shape? Can still touch my toes even if my body hair is marching to places where it was n't ten years ago and forsaking the places it used to be in. So kind of comforting. Kind of...

It was some time before it was my turn to sit in the chair. I'd worked my way through the magazines and papers that Reno scatters around his barber shop for people to while away the wait, stared idly for a few minutes at the traffic hurrying around Holland Park roundabout, all the time listening to him chatting as he worked steadily with his scissors and clippers. Waiting can be a questions of compromises; you do things, often from boredom, that you'd never do normally. I did. I turned to my right and picked up the only piece of newsprint I had n't touched. It was the Daily Mail. Not something I do regularly. Let's put it this way: it's a question of taste. We don't agree, we don't get on. Some relationships are like that

Their point of view and mine don't touch in anyway. Well, that's not entirely correct, I'm prepared to agree with them on football results, and sometimes the weather forecast, only, though, after I've stuck my head out of the window and verified for myself, but that's as far as we can go. It's a little too shrill for my Guardianista ears for one thing; blimpish, choleric prose for another; very traditional too, life was always better fifty years ago. Always. Places were known then. I think in their heart of hearts they rue feudalism passing. Squires, manor houses, doffing caps, that kind of thing.

And does it know how to champion grievance and belittle at the same time? No contenders left standing here. If you're American and reading this, then imagine Fox News with pages and ink, then you'll get the sense of what they're all about.

The headline shrieked just as it had done the previous day, and no doubt would on the next and the one after that. Yet, it got me thinking. Not about the article, or even what was in the rest of the paper; no, something altogether different. This: the Daily Mail Fridge magnet series. Make a Daily Mail headline on your fridge door using their favourite trigger words. The permutations are immense. It'd be pretty outspoken too. Might end up peeling a couple of layers off the fridge door.

Imagine what you could with these words, for instance, I've seen them appear over the years in their most emboldened font: there's betrayl - they like that; or anger and outrage; farce, yes, they are keen on that word, seen it very recently; then's these close relatives, fiasco, chaos, and crisis. Bungling is another frequent guest on their front page, usually preceding minister or department. Cynical and hypocritical get in there as well.

Then there are these words, the bad words, never to be used when children are around, or servants (it's that kind of paper, or feels it is). These are the Devil's works, the snares that always hobble this country, or at least if you follow their editorials, that is: Europe, and wait for it the baddest of all....Brussels. Oh, I'm shivering. The taboo word.

Nearly forgot, have to have some quotation marks as well for those times when they want to make a point. Important, might have to be sarcastic, even ironic, according to circumstances...you would n't mock though, would you. Would you?

What do you think, will fridge magnets like this find a market, or should I leave musing and simply get my haircut?

Come, friendly ghosts. Where are you? Come out to me. I was thinking of you walking along Kensington High Street earlier this evening. It does n't take anything for me to experience you again, just to turn a corner, or pass a particular building, and there you are, rising to meet me - affectionate echoes of those happy moments that have happened at some point of the twenty years I've known this street. You are steeped into the buildings and into the pavement. Deep and sustaining.

It's the one area in London where the memories of happy, warm, and exciting times overwhelm the neutral, or on occasion, those that are gloomier and bluer. Why is that? I really don't know. Perhaps, I suspect, it's because I've never worked around there; the route to work is a story all on it's own, not one, either, that has a regular joy to it. But here, it's only ever been pleasure.

Probably the happiest moment I've ever had, happened here. A wonderful night some years ago, (not too many, I like history, but I don't live in the past. An optimist still), in a quiet wine bar, with someone I care for a lot. Unearthly contentment. The wine bar has gone now, it's something else; it does n't matter, all I have to do is look at where it was because the glow of that evening never goes. It's like the song writers say: "you can't take that away from me".

Working. Hallelujah. Not me, no, my laptop. It's been hors de combat for nearly five days. I've been running around like a frantic parent trying to get a kidney for their ailing child, except the grail has been a battery, and one I trust will not spontaneously combust either. Thank God for Tottenham Court Road; if there's ever a souk for PCs, software, peripherals, that's it. That's where I got the kidney. Just keep pumping, old feller, that's all you gotta do.

Diets, do they work? Nah, don't even think about it. Nowhere near. They're ridiculous. I've not actually been on one, more that I've been selective about what to eat and what not to, than anything else. But the stories that I keep hearing about people falling off the diet wagon are as suitable for me as for them. Three weeks ago, I decided to stop eating chocolate. Pretty easy to do, like any on / off addict, I knew I could do it simply because I had done it before. You can read my history as a chocolate fiend in that one sentence.

The devil never leaves you, regardless of hard you renounce him. All the time, it's been there, the back of my mind: sometimes self congratulation, "gone so long, what a boy"; occasionally, leering at me with the "come on, you know you what to" smirk.

Anyway tonight, after the gym, it's always after the gym, my weakest time (I could, I suppose, pin the fall on exercise), I wandered into the local corner shop, fifty pence on the counter, and that's it. End of embargo. The lucky bar, the chosen one knew what to say, the old sweet talk: "where have you been all this time? we've missed you" Indeed, where have I been. Diets, food restrictions, call them what you want, they don't work, that's the common thread through all of them. I accept the necessity for them in certain specified cases, and these are inevitably medical, allergies or toxic reactions. But in general, no, they don't work; simply accentuates the hunger. Forbidden fruits always, but always, taste sweeter.

As for me, all I have to keep doing is walk on the right side of the line. Stay moderate, not sink back into the bad habits of four, five bar a day excess.