Another busy day in the office, which started with a bloody awful incident, sending my mood dropping into my boots into a sort of half-panic, half-depression. After 3 hours of struggling with a problem with no hint of resolution, we stopped what we were doing, decided a new way forward and I got to have lunch.

At lunch I went for a haircut, which depressingly involved an hour's wait in the barber's. It may just be worth it, though, since they do a good job and are priced well. Anyway, at some point, some young lad had a hair treatment which looked like it involved yoghurt and a hair dryer - the sort that you expect old ladies to sit in. Except the hair-dryer was black, so he looked like a yoghurty Darth Vader. I started to giggle. My mood broke so resolutely, that I was almost weeping with supressed giggles at this point. It made the rest of the day work out better.

After lunch there were various bits of stuff to do and my aim to leave a little early was banjaxed by a last minute request for some help - on a subject I couldn't really help with. In the end, I got home, got changed, grabbed my guitar and walked to the station for a London gig I had to attend in Earl's Court. I was worried about being late and aimed to be there between 7.30pm and 8pm. Traffic home had been bad, the train got delayed, the tubes were slow and there was a walk to the venue, whose location I was uncertain of.

I got there at just before 8pm. I didn't get a sound check in the end. I didn't hit the stage until 11.25pm! Had I arrived at 11pm, tuned my guitar and just gone straight on, the promoter wouldn't have had too much cause to complain. As it was, I got the first 3 hours of the show before I got to go on.

This was a music gig, with elements of other stuff thrown in. It's part of a low-priority crossover I'm making into the music scene. In other words, I can do slightly different stuff and get away with it in the music scene... and the gigs can be fun. So, I crossed over.

The good thing about waiting to go on is that you get to enjoy the other acts... this is particularly good if they're of a different genre to you entirely, as you don't even get to have professional jealousy.

I warmed up quite emphatically, tired and hungry though I was. An incident in Reading train station had kept me on the wagon. I had asked the cafe for a cappuccino, and was going to add a muffin to my order when I was told that they'd turned the machine off. Well, they could fuck off then, I reasoned, and aborted my offer. A cafe with no coffee machine - that's like a dog with no blood! Ridiculous and not very good company.

I did my gig and got the laughs I wanted. I also instinctively played it big to the big room. This was good. I needed to vent, and showing off to a crowd is one outlet for such a thing.

Then I had to race away from the gig to try to catch various trains and tubes home. I ended up arriving at my house in a taxi at about 1am. Foolishly I called a friend and we went out for late night supplies. This took my bedtime to such a late hour that my plan to get up in time to return to London in the morning was a no-go. Still, the night hadn't been too bad, and I'd managed to avoid the post-gig crash-down being too painful.

The gigs are going better at the moment, which is in stark contrast to the days which are almost entirely shit. Tuesday night was the worst night and it feels like there'll be a long slow recovery ahead. But there will be a recovery. I'm having fewer tantrums and I'm not listening so closely to my darker thoughts.

I feel weaker and less resolute than I want to, though. Nobody wants to be weak.

Still, my life continues to offer me unusual experiences and little highs here and there... sometimes you have to acknowledge that some of your sporadic highs are pretty special, even if they are set against a backwash of shit. Of course, I probably have it so much easier than a huge majority of the population... I'm just not able to see that or draw any comfort at all from it.

I'll tell you this. A few quid extra in a paycheck mean jack shit if it's making you unhappy.