That sounds weird, right? Like I'm going to book a night at some gay sauna in Amsterdam.

Well, no. That's not what I mean.

What I mean is this. For my 30th birthday, I want to acquire some of the skills and habits that I have lacked through most of my adult life. Mostly manly skills. Like self-discipline. Courage. Endurance. The ability to hunt. Or, at least, go for a jog at 6.30 in the morning before work.

I've been trying to develop these skills for years, but the hops and the barley and the nicotine weed have proven too irresistible, and I've followed the way of the slovenly man for most of my life.

Now seems like the perfect time to change tack. I have no responsibilities, and am just about young and fit enough to attempt such a transformation. But how? The big problem for me, it seems, is making the psychological switch from a man who avoids pain and gives in easily to instant pleasures, to a man who embraces pain and prefers the pleasure that comes from a struggle won.

Is such a transformation possible at this point in life?

It's been great fun. Through a quirk of good fortune, my work and personal circumstances have allowed me to partially re-visit my student glory days, free of responsibility and the need to get up and go to work at 9am. I've been living the Old School dream. It's like I found a secret level in the video game of life, where you get to repeat the best bits of your early 20s, except this time with the confidence and wisdom that comes with age. The trouble is, life has been so good in the secret level that I don't actually want to leave this land of milk and honey. There's angry turtles out there who want to kill me.

But the party's over. I've over-stayed my welcome. Inside I feel like I'm 22. But it's becoming clear from the look of terror in the faces of the awful young people who populate the university that I look more like 42.

I don't get fliered any more when I pass the Student Union. Where's my invite to Rain? Where's my invite to Scratch? The Samaritans is not a night club. 

I'm amazed at how quickly the University has ceased to feel like home in the few weeks that I've been working somewhere else, albeit 10 minutes down the road.

There's no going back, now, is there? I must stockpile my arsenal. The angry turtles are waiting.

by Lunchbreath. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

I think it's my quote of the week though. I've taken inspiration from it. I've been a bit pathetic the past few weeks. Months. Years. Decades. But I'm 29 years old in about half a month, so it's about time I sorted out my shit. (Not literally, obviously. I haven't been collecting stools in a haphazard fashion).

I'm not sure what happened this weekend, but after months of searching for some self-motivation for some serious self-improvement and creative purpose, it suddenly just hit me. Like an existential rake in the face.

It's Monday now. Monday afternoon. I haven't had a cigarette all morning, and it's almost 3pm. (I am wearing a nicotine patch though, I'm not that brazen). By this time I've usually crumbled, but today my will is on my side. I've got oxygen in my brain. I'd forgotten what that was like. It's good. I recommend it.

So I'm feeling strong and bright and breezy. And with that small act of self-control, I feel like anything is possible. How long will it last? The world is my oyster!

Until tea-time, anyway.

Ironically, if I was religious, my Sunday would end up being as busy as the rest of the week. Church in the morning, Sunday dinner with the family, some sort of prayer meeting in the mid-afternoon, maybe leading some sort of Sunday school class, tea in the evening whilst watching Songs of Praise and the Antiques Roadshow. Where's the rest in all of that? Sometimes I think Christians (particularly of the humourless Protestant variety, with which I am personally familiar) confuse having a rest with being bored to a living death.

That's why I included the Antiques Roadshow in the list of Christian 'to-dos'. It's not a religious programme, as such, but it does make me want to commune with the whores of the Devil in the same way sitting through a two-hour Presbyterian sermon in the morning does. It's entertainment for Presbyterians. That's why it's only ever been shown on a Sunday. It, and Last of the Summer Wine.

There is a ship, we understand,

Now riding in the river

Tis newly come from Lubberland

The like I think was never;

You that a lazy life do love

I'd have you go now over,

They say the land is not above

Two thousand leagues from Dover...

There's nothing there but holy-days

With music out of measure;

Who can forebear to speak the praise

Of such a land of pleasure?

There may you lead a lazy life

Free from all kinds of labours:

And he that is without a wife,

May borrow from his neighbour.

Based on the medieval European myth about the land of 'Cockaigne', 'Lubberland' is essentially the name given to the medieval peasant's bawdy vision of a leisureful, pleasureful paradise.

For the purposes of this blog, though, 'Lubberland' represents my own (occasionally bawdy) vision of a leisureful, pleasureful paradise. Adventures in Lubberland is, I suppose, a record of my moments of idleness, adventurousness, and creativity; a log of my own little trips to Lubberland, ill-fated or otherwise.

I hope you enjoy it.