For those people who make up my modest group of readers: I'm going to be away travelling for a few weeks, normal service therefore resumes Monday 3 December.

Should my boat ever roll in and I'm in a position to indulge then the first thing on the to do list is commission research in to why a single man with no pets, very rarely at home, no one staying over either, piles dust up the way it probably did in Thirties Kansas. It's all around, everywhere, even in the places in my flat I rarely use. I live in a dust bowl. How come ? I was told that a major cause of dust was shedding skin and hair. The former I'm prepared to accept, but the latter ? I don't have any ! Like many men of my age, it's a doughnut landscape up there: nothing in the centre, but a ragged ring around it. So where is it coming from ?

They're not exactly sweated labour, nor is it bonded servitude, but I can see why US screenwriters have folded and closed their laptops, said a fond farewell to the rigours of the desk and picked up the placards: "Will work for better residuals ! Fight for the right to write ! Fair day's pay" Makes sense to me.

This is something a writer friend popped over in an e-mail. See what the Writer's Guild have to say. No clearer way to state a case than doing it simply and visually.

That old staple of the movies happened to me at lunchtime. Turned round a corner and ran straight into a woman, who burst into tears. Not good for her, nor for me either, self-esteem and all that. But I think she had been in tears long before I hurtled round the corner and she was very apologetic. No need, Honey, crying is good, it's the best way to let go.

What difference a suit makes. I don't actually have one, but I can put something together that will pass muster. And how about this: when I wear it things magically change in some places ! I get served. Decently. Shop assistants spot me, waiting staff come over, they find me a seat, the blind does n't drop when it's my turn to go the next available counter at the bank. How strange. I wonder what it could be?

On the other hand when I'm dressed the way I am habitually, down at heel academic crossed with off duty tugboat captain, then nothing. I'm invisible. And when there's no one left in the shop and they simply have to serve me, it's usually an asymmetric relationship: me talking, and a terse, no words, silent transaction coming the other way. It happened today. I was only buying a lucky dip ticket for the lottery, but from the way it went, you would have thought I was a plague victim. How strange. I wonder what it could be?

Staring me in the face all this time and only today does the light bulb go on: the bigger the house, the fewer the books the owner actually has; the larger the number of books, on the other hand, the smaller the owner's house. Culture does n't pay.

I need to find another desk to sit at in the office, otherwise I'll end up some low rent peeping tom. Ok, let's tone it down a little, not peeping tom in that sense of the term. I'm not loitering or rooting through someone's bin. It's not that sleazy. But I need to move away from the desk I'm sitting at so I can stop gazing out of the window at the office block over the road. What started off as boredom, something to while away the endless drudgery of conference calls has become near compulsion. Note the "near", very important, means I've not fallen over the edge. I'm fascinated by what they do in there: it's barely anything, walk around, chat, peck away at a PC for a few minutes, scribble something on a chart, get something out of a rollerdrawer, that's it.

I'm spending more time watching them do their occasional stretch working than I'm doing myself, and by no means, is my name a synonym for stakhanovite efforts either.

Then if I can see them, surely they can...? Well they just have to, we're facing each other ! And if they are, and humans being human, then they're probably wondering just exactly what is it that middle-aged guy opposite does other than stare blankly out of the window from dawn till dusk. This could be Hitchcock's Rear Window City of London style, with the suspense and claustrophobia edited out and replaced with good old, idle curiosity.

How long have we known each other... two years now ? I've told you everything: what makes me tick, what makes me tock, about the good times, the bad times. Opened up to you. Shared.

But I've not been straight with you; no, I've held something back. It's not a sin, though it is to some, I'm not exactly shame-faced about it, ok, sheepish maybe, it's just I did n't want to tell you. The time did n't feel right for one thing, and I wanted you to have a particular picture of me. Listen, don't be judgemental. Understand me that's all I ask, I have a flaw, a guilty secret, a hidden pleasure....I support a football team...I even own shares in them.

There, it's done, I can breath out, loosen up, you know everything. It's out. It's been like conducting an illicit affair. Who could I tell ? I've skulked in corners, glancing surreptitiously at the football scores on the TV; lurked in the newsagents furtively reaching for a sports magazines, and worse, oh far worse: I've dissembled. Told people, workmates, anyone who asked that I loathed the game, professed ignorance deliberately, jeered at players, derided managers, scorned referees...and yet all along, a covert fan. I have wronged you.

I am not a yob, no, not at all merely a simple man bearing a dark burden day after day. Flawed, that's what I am. Are n't we all?

What forced me to the confessional was this lampoon, my team ridiculed, their downfall mocked. You follow your team to the gates of hell and beyond if necessary. Through thick and thin, and with Sheffield United, it's only ever been thin, gruel in fact...but this, oh no, how could they. Surely only the hand of a Sheffield Wednesday fan can be behind such terrible mischief...