World of more

Slipping out of the back of my twenties and into my early thirties is being marked with an increasing participation in events designed to measure the performance of my body: half marathons, 10km runs, pizza eating races. Some friends charitably ascribe it to a decreased fear of looking an idiot in front of others, I reckon it's more likely an attempt to prove that I may be older and saggier, but I still *got it*. Whatever. This year's primary event is the ridiculously gruelling Trailwalker . 100km, 30 hours, no sleep, walk or run. Boo's done it twice, Baz has done it once, I swore I never would, but now, for reasons probably little removed from raw machismo, I'm lining up with them on July 17th. The event supports Oxfam and all the work they do to alleviate poverty, and the Gurkha Welfare Trust and their work supporting ex-Gurkha's in Nepal. Online sponsorship is possible here , so please join me in whipping out a credit card and spreading some love (I've ...

Dartmoor was large enough to swallow up two thousand keen teens, eight hundred volunteers and enough Army helicopters to re-enact the Falklands War plus assorted ramblers taking advantage of the hottest weekend of the year and still leave a little corner quiet and free enough for four of us to wildcamp in peace. We picked a spot on some flat grass in the elbow of a river bend, sheltered from the light breeze by high banks. The suntrap formed by the topography was warm enough to keep us in shorts and t-shirt until the sun finally fell below the rocky lip of the surrounding landscape. With the sun's rays gone we pulled on fleeces and down jackets, hats and gloves, cooked up noodles, and, when conversation had run out, retired to bed before it got dark The bright red Gore-Tex tube of my bivi bag looked like it wouldn't keep out a light breeze, let alone the sudden chill of an early May night, but lined with Therm-a-rest and sleeping bag full of 800g of goose down it was cosy e...

Ach, I'm stressed. My mind is inefficiently swirling with a million thoughts, .."phone James".."write presentation".."prepare for meeting"..and my dizzily spinning brain wakes me at 5am to emboss worries on the black escape of sleep. The sheer volume of individual concerns renders me busy but oh so inefficient, I can't focus on any task long enough to complete it properly. The reasons for my stress are as manifold as they are anonymously dull; incompetent co-workers, underscoped work, potential professional failure; any job could generate such bland trivialities, and many of my previous projects have done so. The slight, annoying, difference this time is I am aware of my stress while it happens rather than recognising it through the dazzle-reducing lens of hindsight. Great, now I have stress about stress, meta-stress, to vex me further. To relax I try to snag my mind on other distractions, to make the unproductive loop of thoughts jump the menta...

Visitors are always welcome; that's what I said at the bottom of my previous post, and Tokyo-based ex-pat friend Euan took me at my word. A year-long e-mail silence was broken by my Oriental chum, announcing not his arrival in London, but that of one of his close friends. "Could you put Mochi up for a night?" he requested. I hesitatantly accepted, not through any sense of meanness on my part, but because I always feel conflicted when offering accommodation. It's good to be generous, random acts of kindness can only improve the world and my karma; but on the other hand I'm slightly embarrassed that Linhope doesn't really reflect the kind of slick professional image I think it should portray. By my age I fully expected to be living in an airy penthouse apartment; imported maple floors, more windows than walls, a bed the size of Kent; making Margaritas in a brushed metal cocktail shaker for my playwright friends and journalist lovers as the sun set through th...

A photographic pan around Linhope's large, if messy, front room, taken from my regular seat. It is Sunday 8th February at approximately 10pm. Features of note in the photograph (from left): The giraffe on the TV . A full time Linhope resident whose presence predates me. The innominate cuddly ungulate no longer registers on my conscious brain, but is, without fail, the second property of Linhope that new visitors pass comment on. The Television . Almighty and Omniscient Purveyor of Magick and Goode. We, impotent subjects, are in Its thrall, blank canvasses onto which The Television projects whatever It wishes us to see. It is currently displaying snooker for our betterment. Dinner . The empty pizza boxes below The Television represent a full weekend's worth of dining from the official Linhope caterer - GoGo Pizza (0207 402 4022). The Sofa . A spectacularly uncomfortable example of a cheap sofa-bed. Lurking deep within its sprung bowels are fabulous arrays of wealth in ...

The cathartic urges detailed below persisted when I returned to Linhope and extended to a thorough review of my record collection. Of the roughly four hundred 12" singles I have collected in the last five years at least fifty are now surplus to my DJing needs. There seems little point in sticking them on eBay or giving them to Oxfam (my guess is the average Oxfam visitor is not hunting for some three year old Dutch trance on an obscure record label) so I'm going to give them away to people that want them. I've detailed the full list here . If you want any of these records drop me a mail to simon at worldofmore dot com and we'll sort something out. I don't want any money other than to cover postage, although I have Amazon or HMV wishlists if you're feeling generous.

For reasons now lost to me, at the age of fifteen I considered it a good idea to move my limited possessions from the large, spacious bedroom I occupied on the sunny side of my parent's house to the small L-shaped room under the eaves at the front. Perhaps it was so that I could be different to my younger sister whose room was alarmingly exactly the same dimensions as mine, maybe it was so that our playroom would be larger, I can't remember. Whatever the reason, sixteen years later the room is still mine. I effectively moved away from home at 19 (and again at 23), but I left a large number of my belongings in that cramped bedroom and have never fully reclaimed them. The bookshelves which once supported all the books I'd read still groan under what is now a fraction of the books I own, the wardrobe that used to hold all of my, frequently ill-advised, clothing now holds only those garments I have little use for. Patiently, my parents have put up with my inability to declu...