Afterwards I walked along the prom for a couple of miles, delighting in the flat grey sea and horizon. "Free Drugs and Alcohol," a poster said. And in much smaller letters underneath, "Advice. Morecambe Library, Tuesdays 7pm."

My destination was the Smugglers Den, the oldest pub in Morecambe, built in the 1640s. A noticeboard outside irresistibly advertised "Hore Racing". I went in looking for the hores but I didn't want to suggest anything inappropriate to the woman in the fleecy tracksuit.

"

Whilst I kept one eye open for any sudden outbreak of erotic sprinting, I had a pint of Mild and chatted pleasantly and inconsequentially to the locals. £3 for something barely over 3% is steep for Morecambe though, and I only had the one.

Following day Kitty came over and we ended up with a little gang of us in the garden at the Sun Hotel. In the evening, Kev and Neil bought me my tea, again in the Sun. Neil's friend from Uni was there, one of the large constituency of men for whom it is perfectly natural to ask no questions whatsoever of anyone, but quite happy to be enquired about for an indefinite period of time.

Yesterday a barbeque at Erica's. Little bit of drunken attraction developing with her friend Davina, a former pub landlady who had the tenancy withdrawn from her after she was convicted of a minor drugs offence concerning a herbal remedy commonly obtained from the gardens of the Levant. "Is Davina single?" I asked Erica as she was away for a minute. "Yes," came the astonishing reply.

---

A year since she last contacted me, Bridget emails out of the blue, asking me if she knew anyone who could sort her out. "I know it's very cheeky, after you dumped me and all..." I immediately emailed back, as I did not want that to be registered as the official chronicle of what happened.

Did I dump you? That's not how I remember it. First you said you didn't fancy me (that's alright you can't help that) then, as friends, you could never bloody turn up for our socialising, always cancelling after I'd arranged a babysitter. Anyway, never mind, I was surprised and pleased to see you in my inbox and glad you've kept my virtual address.

There's one person who might be able to help. [...] Give me a little time and I'll suggest it.

Yes, you are a very cheeky fucker and I like you for it x

We exchanged a couple of bewildering emails, before the penny dropped. She was after a herbal remedy commonly obtained from the gardens of the Levant. I thought she was after someone to give her a rodding. It would have made for an amusing incident had my friend turned up on her doorstep.

I am most piqued. Being piqued can be good. A good poem can give you a good pique. But not this sort of piquery.

Could anyone tell me whether you'd find this offputting if you received this as a first email from someone on a dating site? I sent this to a 37-y-o from Eeeh Baah Goom Town, and she barred me from contacting her!

By the way, if you imagine the objection would be an age difference, she did say on her site that the age range she's looking for is 30-50. Last I looked, 47 falls within that. And I'm a fuck sight better looking, and better dressed, than most 47-y-o men in Lancashire.

Just to contextualise the first sentence in my email to her, her "You should contact me if" section included "You've got nice fore arms." I know that should be one word, but she's exonerated according to the provisions of the Attractive Women Get Away With Slight Spelling Mistakes Rule.

I've spent the last few days looking at my forearms and thinking "Are these nice, from the point of view of a girl ten years younger than myself from B--?" And I can't find an answer.

My eyes lit up when you mentioned L'appartement. I love that film. I love it but it leaves me with a faint feeling of envy that I will never be that cool, and then I think, let's not bother about imitating film stars. So my ideal night now would be getting you out for a drink and just see what happens.

I know we all like to be appreciated for our inner qualities etc. But: nice picture.

Actually it's just occurred to me that you don't invite someone out on the first email. Maybe that's it.

---

In happier news, my artistic collaborator Shelly, with whom I cavorted at the Belgian State's expense last year, emails to tell me that a professional New York-based art journalist who came to Brussels last year to see our show has made a web page about it.

She's made a hash of the titles of the pieces, attributing one piece to someone else when it's my piece, and getting the dates of the pieces way off, but it's flattering to know that someone travelled all that way to review the weekend of which me and Shelley were part. Why didn't she introduce herself I wonder? That's strange. We could have had arty sex in the Sint Caterine district.

This is me performing George Brecht's Drip Piece, not "Drip Music" as she erroneously titles it. Must do more of this in 2012. I like it, I enjoy myself, people like it, I get good reviews, I meet interesting, bullshit-free people, and always manage to get utterly pissed, usually for free, afterwards.

I applied for an admin job with a dance company, partly because I imagine that it's the sort of job in which you'd meet plenty of women, and most of the men are gay, so there'd be little competition for a straight man attracted to arty girls.

"...we regret that on this occassion [sic] we are unable to invite you for interview. We hope you feel inspired to work with [the company] in the future."

Well, not quite unable to interview me; you've chosen not to. And what a ridiculous final sentence, the insidious Weltschauung of work as an expression of the individual spirit. I received that email on the same day as I read Jenny Turner's review in the LRB of Richard Sennett's new book. "It simply doesn't make sense any more, this infusion of working life with near religious emotion, but people still do it".

The vibrant economy of north Lancashire, does however throw up other opportunities.

Does it mean you're working in the refrigerated section or are they looking for a bit of a stoner? More sinisterly, is it a coded warning that the job will require immense reserves of patience and the elimination of self as one is faced with both the stresses of being polite to customers who don't deserve it, and having constantly to defend yourself and your £6.08 an hour against the microsurveillance of a hostile management?

Yes

Starting drinking again on Saturday afternoon felt like a door-opening, light-flooding, release back into the word of sensual sociability. Bumped into Erica and her fiancé in town and went for a drink with them. They were going to his cousin's wedding later. "A pikey wedding on St Paddy's day. How pikey can you get?" she said, deliberately needling her fiancé, who doesn't like the word "pikey". He calls himself a "traveller".

In another pub I was beckoned over by New Business Colleague. Girlfriend was looking a bit nice with her new hairdo. Straightened it, dyed it blonde, tapered it into the nape of her neck. She had on a sea-blue fake satin top unbuttoned to just above her tits. Chatting and laughing. I wish it could be like this all the time. He needs a woman to keep him in order him and to make his life better, then dislikes himself for that. "I think I can make him a better man," she says, while he's in the loo.

I casually enquire how long they've been out, in order to monitor his drinking. He is the worst drinker I have met in a long time, alcohol unleashing a rain of aggression and self-pity. As they order the third bottle of wine, I bid them farewell. He'll turn now. What are you doing with him? Come round to mine and I'll show you my Wilton Felder LPs. But that'll have to stay where it is for the time being, because he might get a little bit cross.

I arrived back to Kirsty's and had to pretend to be sober. I defrosted the girls' tea, a pile of packaged carbohydrate, while watching Ireland v England. A set table, the rugby, washing on the line, one daughter drawing, another reading, another on the computer. The stillness is soporific and I slope into a Dad-doze on the settee.

Yesterday afternoon Kirsty came home from her weekend away, bringing her boyfriend with her. He manages his situation well, asking them questions but not being ingratiating. Boyfriend goes home and we all go out for Mothers' Day to a cheap Italian restaurant. Waitresses in those gorgeous tight black skirts with the zip on the outside at the back. We finish off with some delicious velvety-bitter Amaro, a bottle of which I must procure for myself.

New Business Colleague texts to say he's been arrested for assault. "All sorted, but don't mention it to Girlfriend."

---

No

Fourth day off the drink. This means living with a background of daytime tiredness as vivid, unpleasant, violent dreams (Syria, swimming pools, electrocution, naked shame bravely born) occupy what feels like most of my night.

Yesterday David H--, Professor at my last university, came over to Lancaster to give a talk called The Value of Music, which was a rivetting hour of him trying to put some critical qualifications into the ways in which music is too simply valued as a noble cultural enrichment in the impoverished Philistine wasteland to which capital and its slave, the Government, are working to reduce this country. Not a single person there from Lancaster's Institute for the Contemporary Arts, the "department" into which all the arts subjects are subsumed.

Afterwards a general invitation was opened to dinner. I went home but said I'd join them for a soda water (literally) later.

At home I broached the subject of the imminent rent increase with Stefan. I suggested, I think very generously, that I bear half the increase, and Stefan and Csilla half. "Then we move out," he declared, his gauntlet-throwing swagger undermined by the Alice band on his head, which may well be à la mode in the resorts of the northern Adriatic but looks silly in Lancashire.

"I find flat in London, Manchester for 400. That is not room for 300. There is nothing in that room, no wardrobe, no TV..." "You selfish fucker," I thought. "You, your girlfriend and Bela stayed here rent-free for ten weeks when they were ripped off, and now you're complaining that my generosity doesn't extend to buying you a TV and a wardrobe."

Csilla will be home today sometime and might temper his arrogance, but if they move out they can repent at leisure as they discover that even in some saggy-curtained doss house in Morecambe, with free hiphop basslines till 5.00 every morning, they will be paying at least 60, 70 quid a month more than they are now.

A further compromise suggestion, of finding someone for the supposedly spare single room but which he has arrogated as his study, and getting the new lodger to pay the marginal increase, was rejected. "No, is too crowded. This house is only for three."

I was glad to get back to The Value of Music. In the Borough, gastro-pub of choice of the poorly socialised Lancaster academic, I walked into a scene in which The Sociologist was holding forth on Neo-Platonism. "The Judeo-Christian tradition posits an ontological separation..." I had hoped, by giving them an hour-and-a-half by themselves, that they'd have got all that out of their system. I glanced at my pint of soda and blackcurrant and wondered how fast I could decently drink it.

To my relief, The Philosopher adroitly guided us back to the topics of David's talk. We discussed how dreadful lyrics don't affect the pleasure derived from music you love. I argued, contra David, that Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing is overrated and banal, and The Neo-Platonist urged Portishead on us. "Not coming round to your house, not for the conversation nor the music", I thought.

A scream of shrieking women was becoming ear-splittingly empty. I wondered if everything everyone was saying was really that funny; or perhaps it's an exaggerated form of politeness. David announced his departure, and I, fearing a return of The Ontological Divide in the Judeo-Christian Tradition, made my excuses too.

---

Tonight, with daughter Fiona, in her new glittery dark blue braces, and a neighbour's daughter, to see a physical theatre piece called Alchemystorium. Love lost and found in a cafe, with exaggerated gestures. Behind me, someone I know and keep at arm's length, laughing over-loudly to assuage her discomfort at not being the centre of attraction, and her brat of a son kicking my seat.

Walking back home we found a torn up set of homework strewn all over the pavement. We began collecting it together. "You've missed a sheet there, in the middle of the road. Did you drop it?" asked Brat-Mother. "It's not ours," I said. "I don't know whose it is." "Oh well leave it there then." I said nothing and darted into the road to fetch a worksheet about converting fractions.