Critical Bill has nothing on me... My current favourite text editor (Notetab) has started opening itself up at 3am, ready and waiting for me like a Victorian whore dosed with gin. I have this new routine which began sometime in the first week of January. I awake with Jess before seven and as soon as she is out of the door at 7.30 I either get up and pour coffee into my disbelieving body or crash back into dreamland only to get up an hour later and pour coffee into my disbelieving body. Either way I'm sat at the keyboard by nine. The PC tends to be awake all night but, unlike me, never flags. The little bastard is always ready to be bashed at no matter how many strange things it has been downloading while I (sort of) slept. The day actually spins away quite quickly with the writing, the email, the reading and the occasional bout of arguments conversation with the neighbours. Lunchtimes are spent with Jess (in person or over the phone) and by the time she's back home I need a break from one kind of screen and collapse in front of another while we watch a DVD and cook or just hang out. None of that is set in stone of course and I have PLENTY of free time to meet up with friends, annoy people over the phone, go shopping or just enjoy walking around London with a camera in hand and an eye open for traffic accidents. By midnight or perhaps 1am we are back in bed. The problem (although I'm not sure it is one) is that I am never tired. I have a notebook under the pillows and a head full of crap that needs to be written down. Jess has learned to drift off despite me mumbling to myself like Renfield with a mouthful of bugs but she will occasionally turn to me and tell me things that she has no recollection of the next morning (last night it was pancakes). 2am and I'm sat back at the PC with fresh coffee which is fine because the other side of the world is awake and there is always more email to play with and the notebook to dump into the PC and before I know it WHAM. 5am. Sometimes I stand on the balcony and watch the sun hit the buildings at Canary Wharf or watch the Gherkin start to shimmer. Sometimes I catch the news on BBC24 and sit on the couch until I hear the alarm-clock go off. Other times I slip back into bed and doze for a while until it's time to repeat the whole thing over again. Crazy right? But not a single second of it is boring. I know that I need to cut back on the coffee and get some real rest but I've never been a big sleeper. More than four hours and I'm wasted and at the moment I'm happy with two or less but I do still manage to stay in bed for most of the weekend so it's not like I never sleep. Just less than you do. Mike is writing to The Clash