Monday 27 November 2006

how do you sleep at night?

It’s just about gone half-nine on a Monday evening and I’m giving some serious thought to giving the day up as a bad job and hitting the sack.

32 years old and it looks as though my Monday is going to consist of the following: get up, go to work, sit in meetings all day, go home, have tea, go to bed. That’s not much of a life really, is it?

The solution to my tiredness is simple of course. The only problem is that I don’t do early nights: I’m a night owl and I’m only rarely in bed much before midnight. Many is the night that I have found myself pointlessly up late in front of the laptop or the telly (or both) just pottering about and busy doing nothing much. Somehow I find that much more relaxing than sleeping. I get little enough time to myself, so this time spent doing what I want to do is precious. I need time to unwind; time for my brain to process the day.

As if I didn’t stay up late enough already, I have had even more opportunities for late nights recently as England have been playing Australia in the First Test in the 2006/7 Ashes Series in Brisbane. The first ball of each day’s play is delivered at around about midnight UK time, and the last ball is delivered at around 7am. After the excitement of the 2005 Ashes, apparently lots of people have been staying up late or setting their alarms early so that they can take in a bit of the action.

Not me.

I watched the first half hour or so of the first day’s play when I got in from the Bluetones the other night, and I watched an hour or so on Friday night, but that’s it. The rest of the time I’ve just gone to bed. Partly this is because England have been pretty dreadful from the moment Steve Harmison delivered the first ball of the match straight to second slip, but mainly this is because I’ve been too knackered to sit up and watch it.

I think maybe I need a holiday.

Or an early night.

Oh crap. Would you look at that – as I write this, it’s already gone half nine ten eleven (bloody blogger!) and my early night has long disappeared into the distance.

Oh well.

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If you like music, do go and check out “Oh” - Russ L’s blog. Russ might have vehemently disagreed with my prosecution of R’n’B on the Art of Noise the other day, but that's okay. I can’t say that I agreed with all of the points he raised, and I was a touch taken aback by the ferocity of his reply, but I've recovered now. I admire his passion and I want to doff my cap to him. Passion is a good thing in my books.

Definitely worth a look - he is the "R'n'B Doctor" after all.....

6 comments:

  1. I find that it's easier, as I get older, to justify an early night. I just really like to sleep. I generally need about 7-8 hours on a regular basis to be productive. Last night, I got about 10 hours and I imagine, after the weekend, I could have done with another 1 or 2.

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  2. My monday morning ...

    ...well it consists of something like this:

    Get up.

    Look outside and see that in the past week I have been transplanted from London to Perth, West Australia.

    Start looking for jobs.

    ...

    I'm still stuck on that last bit.

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  3. I have colleagues who are always in bed before 10pm. I just can't do that - otherwise your day really would be get up, work, have tea, go to bed. Besides, there's nothing decent on TV until 10 o'clock! However, I can't help but notice how "well" they look, whereas I look permanantly knackered...

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  4. I know how you feel.

    When I get home from work I want to make up on all the lost time and will often be up until gone 1am. I won't really do anything constructive (usually watch TV and play Football Manager) but it feels like I'm making the most of it.

    In reality I know I should be getting more sleep, and me being tired is my body's way of telling me this, but I am now phased into this sleep pattern.

    I'm looking forward to Xmas when my days don't have to be so structured.

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  5. Looking forward to Christmas? You sick man!

    I've just started getting up religiously at 6. Sometimes I potter along late into the evening, sometimes I crash at 10. When my body's had enough, it's had enough.

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  6. Listen, get yourself a webcam, so i can watch you watching the screen. Theaputic..

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