I think bastard - dear God, I think bastard all the time - but somehow I can't bring myself to do bastard I want to But I can't.And yet I know a chap who can We're worried about him Not just a bastard; a Nazi, womanising bastard. A Nazi, womanising, rich bastard, and do you know what? No wren-bones or tantrums for him; no houses, no Lear Jets, gold watches or collapsible trees. Rich would be tantrums, because who could tell me to stop it? Rich would be girls with wren-bone wrists and ingenious eyes, blue as a bruise, whose idea of fun was to be tied to a tree with fetters of torn linen, and they're not pretending! They're not doing it to shut me up, or for the money! No! It's because I'm rich! Rich would be a custom-made portable collapsible Hermes tree, and a hereditary Moldavian linen-tearer, on 24-hour call.The trouble is, to get rich like that, you have to be a bastard That's where I fall down. Rich would be an 18th-century townhouse, something garish at St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, something simple in the Maine backwoods and a Left Bank atelier for those moments marginals (six freshly pressed suits of bleu de travail in the sandalwood wardrobe, and a ruined Mexican aristocrat to cook the dinner). I am seriously considering being rich, so far as one can seriously consider anything on a day like this, sweating uneasily beneath a heaving, sultry cloudbase which keeps threatening to break but never does, like a reluctant or grudging lover: "More! More!" but it's never enough and in the end all you can do is roll over and sulk Rich would be nice.

It's as though, in the office, the actual work is only a pretext, and we are really all just there for each other's entertainment, a collective mutual sideshow without guilt or obligation.It's possible that the answer is to be rich. I mean, there they are, perfect strangers whose lives and histories and tastes and inclinations are a closed book, and yet, just by virtue of sharing the same building, they suddenly become the objects of intense, speculative fascination. I sort of miss the script, too (post-natal depression, all its life ahead of it and I won't be there to watch it grow up), but mostly it's the office. It's wonderful being interested in people just for the hell of it. Not only was I becoming clearly institutionalised, but I was nurturing a potentially lethal passion for one of the clever women there, a crop-headed Tank Girl with skin like Yucatan honey and the dirtiest laugh since Sid James No good No chance Won't do Rats.But I miss the office. It's a question of personality, the dark green sock in the whites wash of life.I'm not going to the office any more Perhaps that's the trouble. I had been going to the office, but the script is finished now, and they are all very disappointed in it, and now I am not going to the office any more It shouldn't bother me I should be relieved The office was becoming a dangerous place for me.

I imagine myself as one of those Victorian literary types, shady apartments somewhere opposite the British Museum, a calm orderly life of composition in the morning, luncheon at the club, the afternoon snooze, congenial evenings and home to a narrow blameless bed "Given the chance ..." I muse. But the trouble is, I am frequently given the chance, and all I do is itch and pine. They use it recreationally in America, did you know that? "Hey, guys, let's drop some P, then we can have a real blast on .. hang on .. yeah, on 11 August Way to go!"What I need is self-sufficiency. That would be the thing, but it takes three weeks to kick in and I'll be right as rain by Thursday. But here's a good rule: never mind the straws; watch the camel.Sorry to offend, but, listen, do you want a smack in the head or what? Can't you tell when somebody is having a bad day, a real barking, corking stinker of a crunchy-Pot-Noodle, blood-on-the-telephone day?Prozac Lovely Prozac. "The body had apparently lain for several days before it was .. found.

Police refused to confirm rumours that a heavily bloodstained telephone was found near the corpse."I suppose I should get a damp rag and clean the blood off, but, listen, why don't you just shut up? Get off my back, with your smug, sanctimonious, pecker-up exhortations. It's all right for you, but for some of us a damp rag could be the last straw The one that breaks the camel's back Only a damp rag, you say? Yes indeed. There's even blood on his telephone." As it is, though, they just say, "Ugh." Who? There's nobody to see it I could be one of those corpses You know: found. An early-morning Q-Tip accident and now there's blood on the telephone.