Fuckwit Lodger and his mum came over to collect his belongings, first amongst which is "his" cat. No friends, no girlfriends, no visitors ever, just a cat. His mum's voice was a forty-minute unbroken drone of her health problems, moans at Fuckwit for incorrect packing technique, and a detailed disquisition on different types of dog food.

I don't care about them; I'm just sorry about the cat. Poor thing will now be cooped up twenty-four hours a day in a bedsit in the worst part of Morecambe. I've been letting her out for hours at a time, and overnight occasionally.

---

Me and Trina had a jolly night at a soul and house do in glamorous Clayton-le-Woods. Walking there we got a lift with these three gorgeous, chatty women who'd driven up from Derby, although their accents were Scottish.

Arrived and met several of the usual suspects. I made the mistake of buying a "fajita" from the van outside. It was like a cold stew of slimy veg and salad. I asked them if they were doing Clitheroe Food Festival which is coming up on 13th August. "Well, Clitheroe's never really worked for us," she said. "No, that's 'cos your food's shit," I thought.

There was problem with the volume though. One DJ in particular was wrecking the speakers and the music yet again with absolutely ear-splitting volume. I politely asked him to turn it down just a notch, and he stuck two fingers up at me. Poor lad's deaf as a post. I wish I could install an electric shock machine into the volume knob when he's playing. In the future, I'm just going to avoid events where he's on the bill. He's like a patient you can't help.

We went back to the hotel to wait until he'd finished and put some music on. I got a couple more ales down me neck while Trina did her bit for the Swedish vodka industry.

Went back and it was still too loud, but not to worry, it was warm enough to dance around outside for a bit.

Then we bumped into a couple of people I know, an ex-copper and a youngish DJ who made me glow very nicely with some comments about my musical knowledge. We acquired a couple of unknown girls, as all perambulations to hotel rooms require, and we all ended up in Plod's room where to my immense delight he produced a bottle of his Hungarian Dad's homemade pálinka.

The plan for afterwards was to go back to the DJ's room. Trina had gone back to our hotel by them, but I asked someone where room 15 was, and knocked on some person's door who expressed a small degree of displeasure at being knocked up at half two by some random. It was actually room 50, I'd misheard him.

As I walked back I realised I didn't have my key, nor my phone to ring Trina. I didn't want to knock the hotel owner up at 3am so wrote a note on a serviette telling her not to start her car as I'd be sleeping under it. Decided to try an alternative route into the hotel annex by climbing over a flimsy wooden fence with an 8 foot drop on the other side. I succeeded but I snapped the fence and was a bit worried I'd be on CCTV.

I knocked on the wrong window to be let in and saw this naked black man standing there with his mobile phone in one hand. I eventually found the correct room and climbed in through the window. Trina told me that a handsome black man had met her outside the hotel and walked her home. He had been texting her a bit trying to get her to go round to his room but she'd declined. In such situations I am expected to be jealous, but I couldn't have cared less if she'd had a bit of black pudding for supper.

---

For some time I have been vexed by the the closure to the public of the Storey Gardens in the city centre. Together with the Mechanics Institute, which later became the Storey Art Gallery and Museum, they were bequeathed to the City of Lancaster in 1891. So I don't see why they shouldn't be open to us.

All entrances are locked.

But three high gates present no obstacle to a nimble man.

Inside, a more difficult, flimsier fence to be overcome. It kept listing, making me cling hard as it leant backwards.

However, soon got inside to a anti-thrill let-down of no falling masonry or friable walls.

But eventually, I was thwarted by a gate set inside a ten foot high wall.

A hacksaw might be necessary for my next visit. On the other side is a neglected sculpture park thing. It's been robbed in the past so they probably want to keep the overly curious out.

I was pleased to see that my welfare in these endeavours is of concern to the Council.

There were a couple of interesting alleys to explore.

I was curious about the lower one.

Passing some sheds...

I came across an open fire exit.

And found myself in a gallery, where an assistant looked surprised to see me, and said it wasn't opening until tomorrow. I said I'd been doing some work with someone upstairs and he'd told me to come and have a look round.

I quite liked this one.

Probably won't be appearing in Exile On Pain Street's New York auction summaries anytime soon, but I still can't afford it.

Thank you Thomas Storey. I'll be back soon, better equipped.

To the opera. Well, a recording of it anyway.

A plot so predictable -- the maverick outsider winning a song contest and thereby a girl offered as a chattel -- allows you to concentrate on the orchestration and the grain of the voice. It's an idiotic artform and I don't find it musically interesting until you get to Die Soldaten or Lulu, but there's something luxurious about being in an era where massive resources are put into making something so silly, elaborate.

The cheapest seats with an unrestricted view at Glyndebourne are £80, so £13.50 translates the discount for a vicarious night not at the opera. The theatre's bar is staffed by young people whom I would have assumed, when those in that age group were less conservative than they are now, to be stoned. I think they're just self-absorbed. In the intervals, they dreamily offered up chocolate bars and crisps. It was a pity we couldn't have started an hour earlier and had a proper "long interval" with frocks and canapés and cava. They had us in there for five hours, and nothing to eat, although given the speed I was able to key up in the darkness, the amuse-gueles might have been wasted on me.

---

Thursday, and the First Test against Pakistan, and Mohammed Amir's first international match since spending a couple of years by himself in a small room for match-fixing. I got sozzled in my back yard listening to it. I was supposed to be going to Manchester that evening for a talk by some Cubans who were jailed for a longer time than Amir, over something or other, but I rang the co-ordinator up half an hour before the train went with a story about being detained in Preston having to wait for my daughter. Getting out of bothersome obligations is a rarely announced benefit of parenthood.

---

And inevitably, we come to Wendy. I wish I could come in Wendy, on Wendy. I would like to do everything short of coming, with Wendy.

We bought two bottles of cava from Tesco, straight out of the fridge, went to a chazzer and bought two glasses for a pound, each assuming the other would bring them. We sat sun-speckled under a tree in the castle's grounds. All afternoon I could hardly keep my eyes off her dress hem. She reclined back onto her elbows and I was full of desire for her; specifically, to stroke her. "Wendy, I think your dress would look better like this," as I took her hem half way up her thighs. With the exception of what I really want to say, I talk freely with her, almost like word association. We keyed up some mdma and she had her vape thing for the kush. There was a gust of wind and her dress blew up over her knickers.

She texted me twice later that evening. "Thanks for a blissful episode -- spots of time we won't remember xxx." I was so off my head on mdma, and so enjoying the headphoned techno, and the tesselated, fractal patterns that were appearing on my bedspread when I opened my eyes, that I couldn't reply until the next day. "Oh Wendy, I was so deliciously wankered yesterday. Had a few more sparkles and was high as a kite all evening. Twas a lovely dappled afternoon. And I finally got a look at your underwear. See you as soon as possible. PS. You are so effortlessly sexy. You have little idea of what a pleasure it is simply looking at you Xx."

Trina texted me at about 10pm, annoyed that I had turned my phone off. "Is there a day in the 4 years I've known you when you haven't protected me from the truth. I doubt it. Whatever, I'm getting a bit fed up with it all, actually. You don't have to come round tomorrow. I'll just see you on Sunday for [a dance night we're going to]."

I went round in any case. She said she'd forgotten her messages, which became increasingly hostile after the one I've quoted above. We sat in her garden and got through five (oops) bottles of cava, then had sex. Wrong, wrong, wrong. But not wrong enough to stop me sexually exploiting her. The girl I want to reject me pushes herself towards me; the girl I want reminds me wordlessly fifty times in an afternoon, of the boundaries that she has set.

Four women at the next table.

"...sitting on't balcony, looking down at all them cunts down there -- she's dobbed him and she's ditched him and she's getting fingered in the bushes, fucking fat joint, fuck, no, it's not a blokes' holiday...no, no, you're not [going home], you're coming to Galgate and getting off your face."

One of them came over to me. I couldn't remember who she was. "You remember, you were talking about Jeremy Corbyn the other day." Two of them just had their wedding ceremony at the Registry Office. One of the brides was wearing a see-through red artificial lace top over a white bra, the other, trying much less hard, a plain black top and black jeans.

Two hours in and it's all winding down in a familiar vortex in which longwinded expressions along the lines of how lovely you are and how I've never met someone that is such a kind person, no shut up I'm talking, no listen, you know what I'm saying..." are now souring into bitter, drunken, loud, life-as-soap-opera. They've been refused any more drinks. One of the brides' mothers has grabbed her jacket and stomped off. "Fucking pricks."

---

Me and Trina went to Middlesbrough. My mum wanted a second opinion on her clothes for my sister's wedding next month. My sister has been fretting, asking me, amongst other inanities, if I'd like her to buy me a "burgundy" tie to co-ordinate with that of the groom.

We took my mum to a cheap pub for a dinner: a bolus of reconstituted potato, and stools of extruded vegetable fat. Back at hers, she tried on a boxy navy outfit, which I said made her look like a Tory councillor. She had another idea, a white and creme combo which at least has the advantage of a kinder colour. She said "I'd prefer to turn up looking like a scruff. I've no interest in clothes whatsoever."

I am spending the least amount of time possible at this wedding, since I avoid work whenever possible. Trina is collaborating in a lie to my sister that I've got to leave early in order to get to a freelance job in Glasgow.

In fact, we're escaping to a hotel in Appleby, a town whose attraction is that it lacks anything of interest. Dribbly, somnolent afternoons in the bar are enlivened only by the arrival of the militantly healthy types dragging the rain in with them, beaming with a self-satisfaction that comes from being razored for hours by sleet.

---

Me and Wendy ventured up the park. She wanted to nip off into the bushes. "Hang on, I need a wee. Have you got a tissue? No, I can't use my Barclaycard statement." We came back to mine and had a bottle of Prosecco and some weed instead. We text and talk like lovers. We are not lovers. "Being with you would feel incestuous," she said a couple of weeks ago. She sees me like a brother.

I've got sex on a plate with a woman I neither love nor fancy; I cannot have a physical relationship with someone I do. It pains me. It's sad. I feel it as a loss, a waste, a waste of ignoring the natural part of the spectrum of affection that I feel for her.

When she stood up to leave, angling her head and lips away to offer me a sisterly cheek, I held her for a fraction of a second beyond the moment at which I could feel her relaxing to tell me to unclasp her; desire, time racing, the intense few seconds in which I am allowed to hold her to me, desire as strong as the horror of appearing pestering or needy.

Saturday afternoon. I'm in a crowded pub in Loughborough, pleasantly dazed with tiredness with my second pre-5am start in 48 hours. Eldest is at the University's Open Day. It's a strange accent, as difficult to place as the area -- the "East Midlands". A woman hands a man her bag. "Oooh blimey, that's heavy. What have you got in there?" "Slug killer."

I had my interview at the betting shop. I changed my jacket so came out without any money or cards, so had to blag it on the train, there and back. I did a maths test which even at its applicant-sifting apogee amonted to asking us to multiple 4.5 by 7. The manager led me up a staircase strewn with disarrayed boxes of paper, like a set for a fire safety hazard film. Minimum wage, no overtime, no enhancements for Bank Holdays, shops open 364 days a year. I'll find out on Wednesday.

---

I was working at the referendum. I rang Kitty to ask if she could help take the screens and the ballot box and all the paraphernalia up to the church social centre which was to be my station. She said she could do it straight after school on Wednesday, "but shall we have a drink first?" so we sat outside and she told me some tales of Wendy's estranged husband's attempts at maintaining his control over her, using the daughter as proxy and her drinking as the moral high ground.

I felt glowing with sympathy for her as Kitty told me the details. I texted her, knowing that she'd know that Kitty had shared the story with me. "I love and care for you very much Wendy. I want you to be happy, with all the door-opening vistas that you deserve. I am tremendously fond of you." I was implying a criticism of her husband's behaviour, and advertising myself.

She replied an hour later, "And me you. I'm very busy next week but maybe I could sneak you in round the back when [daughter] is in bed."

Text exchanges with Wendy can make me feel crumpled, screwed up like a fisted sheet of A4. She doesn't fancy me; doesn't want to sneak me in to her house for the reasons I'd like. I replied with a levity that was not mine.

---

Thursday, and voting day in the UK and Gibraltar. Got up at 4.45, was at the polling station by 6. It was in an airy room with large picture windows. I had two poll clerks, one of whom annoyed me greatly. He turned up in jeans and a T-shirt, a ring through his lip, an ugly gargling speech that was difficult to understand, a reluctance to talk to the voters, a droopy-lidded man who wants to tell you things: I learnt that the Ring Cycle has never been performed in its entirety outside of Glyndeboune, the opera house built specifically for its performance; and that I am wrong about the name of the street next to the one in which my children have spent all but the first year of their lives. I imagined his house, all World of Warcraft boxed sets and board games. I steered him into him doing the role which requires the least interaction with the public.

All finished at 11, I got back to the girls' house to follow the results. Eldest wanted to follow it too. Kirsty was all ready to go to see boyf but fetched a sleeping bag down for me. I felt that adrenaline chattiness, ran down my clockwork with a sleep-deprived, glassy, sociabilty. We both went to bed for an hour-and-a-half, then got up again at one o'clock. I lasted until a quarter to six, then was woken again at seven by the other two, who had to go to school. Kirsty arrived back from her night with boyf at about nine, articulately twitchy on sparkle dust, and we talked about it all.

I voted for the frying pan of Remain rather than the fire of Leave, but the Remain compaign came across as a group unable to speak to anyone outside their own class. You can't dismiss people's concern about immigration. It's a subject that the left finds embarassing even to approach, but there are many people in white working class areas that have been made spectators in their own streets, as a functioning cohesive community has been undermined by the arrival of immigrants. The established inhabitants are expected to settle for a mannered apartheid in their suburbs to replace a practical closeness, an instruction which perhaps reflects the middle class preference for distance in social relations.

I went down the pub for a Brexfast pint. Everyone I spoke to thought it was a great move. I went home to see Fuckwit Lodger in the act of moving out. I shook his hand and wished him all the best with a neutral face designed to mask my relief that he is finally out of my hair.

Kim's here for the weekend. Her dog pissed on my trendy G-Plan chair and over the hem of two of her dresses which were draped over it. Kim's meticulously fussy about cleanliness -- she resolutely avoids showering or bathing in my bathroom whilst she's here -- but a dog pissing over my furniture and her dresses is OK. She woofed through a big plateful of spaghetti alla puttanesca, then said she was still hungry, so I made us some drop scones, of which she ate fourteen.

She started wanking again in bed -- or at least, I read something sexual into the way she seemed to be breathing and constantly moving. This turned me on very much. I spent a long time thinking about how what a good state her cunt must be in to receive a proposition: "Kim -- could I put my fingers inside your cunt?" but I didn't: the bed, with Kim, has a border.

We spent last night snorting meow meow off a book called Historical Documents of the Irish Avantgarde. The book was chosen for its laminated cover and size, but I liked the conjunction of the sparkling, crystalline white lines of the most visually attractive of all drugs I know, and the book's title.

It's an invented documentary of Irish contemporary music, written by Jennifer Walshe, an actual Irish contemporary composer; Flann O'Brien's pisstake of the comical forced nobility of Gaelic language preservation contests, in The Poor Mouth, can't be far behind it. I wish she hadn't given the device away in the foreward, as it dulls the joke. Whilst I haven't noticed any indication of a mephedrone habit in Walshe's recent programme notes, I think such a playful woman would appreciate the way we used her faux research. I read a couple of chapters of it in between dancing and re-dosing, but meow meow fucks your reading sight up pretty early on.

---

I get a phone call from a rough-sounding bird. She's ringing to offer me an interview for a job in a betting shop; I applied back in February. I deliberately sent them a revisionist cv designed to make me sound thick, omitting any education beyond my 'O' levels, and inventing several menial jobs to replace my teacher / signalman / technical author years. It's secured me the interview, but I can't find the cv on my computer so I'll have to improvise my lying. The reviews from former employees on the internet who've worked for the firm are almost universally adverse, but it's a case of co-dependency at the very bottom of the ladder.

Wendy said the other day, "The obvious career for you is staring you in the face. But neither Kitty nor me would want to visit you in prison."

---

Fuckwit Lodger delights me with a text saying that he's moving out on Thursday. I have never wanted to see the back of a lodger as much as he. His constant presence demands an equally constant tiring sociability. He never has visitors or goes out to meet friends, and his poor cat is kept a prisoner in the house, never let outdoors. He visits his controlling personality on her. She's staying here when he leaves and she doesn't know of the vista of back alley adventures about to be opened up to her.