I was thinking earlier of throwing together some sort of words of advice for young people, á la William S Burroughs (”If you’re doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch, get it in writing. His word isn’t worth shit. Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal”). Kind of near-truisms that I really ought to have realised at the time but that somehow escaped my mind.

And yet… now I can only really think of one, perhaps something to do with my recent failed attempt to get to sleep, while nestled in a deep depression (physical, for a change):

Never buy a matress from IKEA. It may say “pocketed sprung” on the label, but there’s pocketed sprung and there’s pocketed sprung.

<sigh>

(of course, this is subsumed within the greater Dan-ism that you should never buy anything from IKEA… aside from the oft-remarked inability to assemble their cack-goods once you get home, the whole stressful traffic-jam-parking-space-warehouse-shelf-till-queue experience is just not worth it. I have managed to banish IKEA from my life and I’m a much better person for it, my anger at the world has all but disappeared).

Maybe hearing Nick Hornby’s paen to his favourite songs on Radio 4 also prevented me from sleeping. I’ve been hearing about this book all over the last couple of weeks, and it annoys the hell out of me that somebody can get paid good money to ramble on about their 31 favourite songs. Actually, it was very interesting, despite tonight’s installment being about two songs in which I have no interest (well, it would have to be really… I mean, “my favourite 31 songs” is just too personal unless you can make it a good read as well). But still… the very idea. The barefaced cheek of it. Gissa job, I can do that.