Pitching the World

Last year I was thinking about writing a book called Around the World in 80 Lays. Don’t worry, it wasn’t going to be a sexy book. Rather, it was going to be a hilarious romp with me going around the world and, with chronic irony, not having sex with anyone. It was a bad idea. When I say that I was thinking about it “last year”, I wasn’t thinking about it for the whole of last year, but probably only for about five minutes of last year. Two of those five minutes were taken up with me Googling “Around the World in 80 lays” and finding out that Joe Diamond – “the Gulliver of sex travels”, according to Larry Flynt – had beaten me to it.

But I’m a sucker for a snappy feature title. For a start, they look splendid in the subject header when you’re pitching. And I particularly like the “Around the World in 80…” approach. This approach got me thinking – it got me thinking that although I might not be able to go around the world in 80 lays, there are probably lots of other things I could go around the world in. What things? These things…

Around the World in 80 Mays. I go around the world, but only during the month of May. At the end of each May I have to come back to London and wait until the following year to resume my journey. This would take a while. Probably 80 years.

Perfect for: Geographical Journal, Traveller, Wanderlust.

Around the World in 80 Gays. I go around the world constantly circled by 80 homosexual men.

Perfect for: Attitude, Gay Times, GQ, The Pink Paper

Around the World in 80 Neighs. I go around the world learning to ride 80 different types of horse. If there are that many.

Perfect for: Country Life, Horse & Hound, Horse & Pony Magazine, Horse and Rider, Your Horse.

Around the World in 80 Nays. I go around the world and say no to stuff 80 times.

Perfect for: Red Pepper

Around the World in 80 Pays. I go around the world but can only spend money on exactly 80 separate occasions.

Perfect for: Accountancy Age, Financial Adviser, Moneywise, Spear’s Wealth Management Survey.

Around the World in 80 Rays. I go around the world only speaking to people called Ray.

Perfect for: Dave Gorman Magazine

Around the World in 80 X-rays. I go around the world amazed at the many different ways in which doctors and medical professionals in various cultures X-ray their patients.

Perfect for: British Medical Journal, New Scientist, Nursing Times.

Around the World in 80 Ways. If I can think of them, I go around the world using 80 different methods of transport 80 times.

Perfect for: Aeroplane Monthly, Boards, Caravan Magazine, Classic Boat Magazine, Climb Magazine, Dancing Times, Dogs Today, Flight International, Motor Cycle News, Runner’s World, Ski and Board, Ships Monthly, Today’s Pilot, Total Off-Road, Truck & Driver, Waterways World, Yachting Monthly

Around the World in 80 Trays. I go around the world looking at, and occasionally purchasing, different types of trays.

Perfect for: Delicious, Sainsbury’s Magazine

Around the World in 80 Yays. I go around the world and am happy about stuff 80 times.

Perfect for: Psychologies, That’s Life!, Yoga & Health

A confession: I don’t really like blogs. In fact, I hate the fuckers. A second confession: I’m rehashing material I wrote back in March 2010. Remember then? Then, when times were good? I don’t, not really. At the time though, I wrote: I don’t particularly like blogs, writers, writing, blogs about writers, or writing a blog about a writer.

Little has changed, except now I have the after-effects of a head injury to deal with as well.

I’ve lost rather a lot over the last year – wife, mind, home, hair, dignity, muscle definition – but losing consciousness at the weekend was the most disturbing. I’d been drinking for 30 straight hours and on the way to the pub – the pub, for fuck’s sake – I just collapsed and was out, with my eyes wide open, for at least a minute. Friends who were there were “terrified” but thankfully paramedics and doctors put me back together again and after four to five hours of being checked out and monitored and silently (and deservingly) scolded I was let out onto the streets of Archway to carry on flying around like a banshee.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? Don’t answer: I know it’s ridiculous. The second most ridiculous part was falling asleep in a wheelchair whilst waiting for a chest X-ray. The first most ridiculous part was that as I was drifting off I thought: “I bet this happens again. I bet this isn’t the last time I fall asleep in a wheelchair.” This is kind of worrying and makes me think that I must be completely out of my fucking idiot mind.

But before I find myself falling asleep in a wheelchair again, I’ve decided to wrestle this ill-fated joke shop of a project to the ground. It wasn’t always going to be this way. Since I landed pretty much the best agent in the country, the idea was to let the pitching part of Pitching the World just kind of evaporate. My book, when I get round to writing the book, was going to gradually insinuate that the idea of pitching 642 magazines is a ridiculous one and one that can’t really be done, but what can be done is to use that framework to make some hilarious swipes at the journalism industry whilst simultaneously losing my wife, mind, home, hair, dignity and muscle definition. Seriously, if you have a copy of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook and flick through it, you’ll realise that pitching all of those magazines to a not-dog-shit standard is impossible. They’re too specialist and particular and seemingly impenetrable to lay people. It really is impossible.

Which makes me determined to do it. It makes me determined to do it because I’ve flapped around and fucked up everything I’ve ever tried and I’m not going to flap around and fuck this up. If I do this, I realised, I’ll be the first – and quite possibly last – person in the world to individually pitch 642 magazines. That, I hope, is something to be proud of. That, I hope, is something I can carry around with me forever. That, I hope, is something I can smile about the next time I find myself sleeping in a wheelchair in a hospital.

As far as I can gather, getting financial support for your writing project works like this.

1. At 27, after failing to become an actor in Los Angeles (because you only spent two days there), you get a coach to Canada and fail to become a successful carpenter. You fail to become a successful carpenter because you’re not very good at carpentry, you’re too scared to climb ladders and you keep laughing at your boss’s face when he hammers in nails. After being fired, you leave Canada and head to Mallorca and make a film about a man who thinks he’s both Clint Eastwood and the King of Spain. After six weeks of filming every day, you become a bit heady and have to move back to the UK and medication. Back home, and on medication, you visit Bournemouth library and happen upon a book called Directory of Grant Making Trusts. This is good, you think, there may be grants available to filmmakers (you assume, wrongly, that you’re a filmmaker now). There is, however, a problem. There is always a problem. The book appears pretty much impenetrable. This is because you didn’t read the ‘How to use this directory’ section at the beginning of the directory. After wrestling with the guide for about 30 minutes you give up, reasoning that the problem doesn’t lie with you, but with the book. You decide not to apply for a grant. That’ll show someone, you think. About three months later you suffer what may or may not be a breakdown. You write about the whole experience – the filming, the breakdown – for Bizarre magazine. It’s your first feature. You ask the editor on the phone if you can be paid up front and he does his best not to laugh. Two years later, when you meet the editor at a party, you claim that asking for payment up front was ‘a joke’, but he can’t remember the incident and goes off to talk to someone else.

2. At 35, after failing to become a reliable husband in London (because you only spent four years there and didn’t really have enough time for your jokes to bed in or for you to hit your sexual peak), you relentlessly get coaches between Bournemouth and London and attempt to pitch the world. You fail at this because – well, there isn’t the time right now, but you fail at this. One day you visit Bournemouth library and head straight for the section which houses the 2010/2011 edition of the Directory of Grant Making Trusts. The first bit of the directory is entitled ‘How to use this directory’, but it looks a bit too long and complicated so you skip it assuming, wrongly, that you read it back in 2003 and have probably retained the information. After half an hour wrestling with the book you go outside and smoke – and hugely enjoy – a cigarette. You come back from your enjoyable cigarette and inexplicably find three trusts which give grants to individuals working on book projects. You like looking at the numbers which run from £500 to £10,000. But you don’t apply according to the guidelines they set out. Oh no, not you. Fuck that. Play by their rules? No way. Far too uncool for a maverick dicksplash writer like you. No way are you going to apply in the manner they suggest which is probably helpful both for them and the applicant. No. Instead, you write a series of long, winding, seemingly carefree applications full of crap jokes that aren’t really jokes. You sit back and wait for the three cheques.

See? Grants. Who knew grant writing could be such fun? Not me. But whilst I’m waiting for my three cheques to roll in, if anyone else has any information on grants – and please, this isn’t an invitation to cut and paste Wikipedia entries on Eddie Grant, Russel Grant or Ulysses S Grant. Or Grant Mitchell* – then please feel free to share it.

*It is really.

I think I may have had enough. My beef isn’t with pitching – I don’t do nearly enough of it to have had enough of it – and nor is it with the semi-award-winning Pitching the World which I don’t update enough for me to be truly sick of it. No, my beef lies with my lifestyle. I think the whole commuting from Surrey to London thing and the whole prancing around all day like a tit thing isn’t quite right for me. The whole constantly-doing-sums-in-my head-because-I-never-have-enough-money-thing isn’t quite right for me. Nor is the whole grinding my teeth down to nubs and my soul down to a husk quite right either. And this state of affairs has been going on for some time. Towards the end of 2009, I wrote:

Another 600 magazines to go. It’s good having something to work towards, something with a bit of a resolution. After said 600 magazines have been pitched I reckon I’ll either be: (a) rich (b) mad (c) divorced (d) sick of bananas or (e) a combination of (b), (c) and (d). Depending on where I’m at mentally, financially, and in my relationship after all the pitches are complete, I can then decide whether I want to carry on writing for a living, become a male prostitute, or get a normal job. Whatever the hell that is.

How astute of me. As is stands I’m half-mad, half-divorced, three-quarters sick of bananas and wholly un-rich. Rather than become fully mad and fully sick of bananas I’ve decided to take a break, go to Europe and complete the necessary pitching in order to finish Pitching the World. Romantic, no? Europe in the spring? And I will do the necessary pitching. There’s no way that I’m just going to book a National Express coach down to Paris, skulk about a bit, chainsmoke my way around the cafes whilst becoming increasingly frustrated at my attempts to land a sugar mummy, then come back to the UK and my nan’s dining room floor. No way.

There is, as far as I can see, only one problem. I have nowhere in Europe to stay. True, I did spend 10 days eating out of bins and sleeping on the streets of Paris, Lyon and Barcelona when I was in my early-twenties, so I can do that again if necessary, but that was in the summer and it was warmer. True, I am going to be applying to various writing retreats in Scandanavia, France and Spain after posting this nonsense. But I’m also on the look-out for potential benefactors, sponsors, anyone really who would fancy a writer around the house for a month or so. If any Pitching the World readers fit the bill or know someone who would, then please get in touch. I can offer some money and the following skills:

1. Good at smoking
2. Good at building walls
3. Reliable gardener
4. Good at cooking stew
5. Can write decent copy, occasionally

That I’ve put ‘Good at smoking’ at the top (the top!) of my ‘skills’ list suggests, to me at least, that if there were a sixth item on the list it would be ‘Excellent at being a fucking idiot’.

“To get out of hell, you’ve got to use power. Tell ten people.” Or so someone told me earlier today as I was strolling to the beach. I’m in Bournemouth by the way, not Surrey. Surrey, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t have a beach. In fact, I’ve lived there for a month and Surrey doesn’t have anything. It might have a shop, somewhere. And trains – loads of trains. But nothing else. Surrey might not even have Surrey in it, I’m not sure yet. Surrey’s only purpose, it seems, is shuttling people out of Surrey.

But I’m not talking about Surrey, I’m talking about strolling. Have you tried strolling? You must. Walking is for the birds, jogging even worse, but strolling, strolling is the new booze, the new black. No longer do I start my days with a brandy coffee and a can; now it’s a banana and a stroll. In the afternoons, when the fear sets in, I take a stroll. In the evenings, when the fear really takes hold, so does my relentless strolling. Oh, you should see me stroll. I’m better at strolling than I am at sobbing and keen-eyed readers will have noticed that my sobbing is not to be sniffed at.

“To get out of hell, you’ve got to use power. Tell ten people.” That’s what the kid with the angelic face, can of super strength lager and joint told me earlier today. It took a while for his message to sink in. For a start I was mid-stroll and I don’t like to be disturbed when I’m strolling. Second, he had massive, brilliant, crazy eyes that I just stared at for a while. I wouldn’t mind those eyes, I thought, and I wouldn’t mind that can of super strength lager you’re drinking and those drugs you’re smoking. In headier days I might have grabbed the lot – can, joint, eyes, face – but these are days of sobriety and strolling and my grabbing days are firmly behind me.

“To get out of hell, you’ve got to use power. Tell ten people.” Well Angelface, consider them told. Sometimes more than ten people read this award-winning love child. Sometimes twelve people read it. What’s the point? Well, there isn’t one really. Last week I landed my most lucrative commission to date and I suppose there was a part of me hoping that I could’ve said I’d ‘strolled’ into it, but that would be stretching things. I suppose if you want a neat link, here’s one: all this strolling is keeping my head clear and I need a clear head if I’m going to keep down my regular writing job and also take on surprise commissions from time to time including this most recent one which is essentially writing the forward to a book on architecture and pays – wait for it, because this is what all the nonsense beforehand about cans, angelic faces being grabbed and strolling has been leading toward – £3 per word.

Three pounds for a word. Sounds a lot, doesn’t it? And it is a lot. Once you consider, however, that I know nothing about architecture then the deal might not seem so rosy. If I were being paid £3 per word for writing about strolling I’d be running – well, perhaps strolling – through the streets. Or if I were being paid £3 per word to write about architecture but could somehow shoehorn my newfound love of strolling in there then I’d be equally happy. And perhaps I can. Perhaps my introduction could be along the lines of:

“To get out of hell, you’ve got to use power. Tell ten people.” Or so someone told me earlier today as I was strolling to the beach. As I was strolling to the beach I was thinking about the fine work over the last two decades of Famous Architect and the relationship between architecture and strolling. Have you tried strolling? You must. Walking is for the birds, jogging even worse, but strolling, strolling is the new booze, the new black. No longer do I start my days with a brandy coffee and a can; now it’s a banana and a stroll and deep contemplation of Famous Architect and his work. In the afternoons, when the fear sets in, I take a stroll and think about Famous Architect’s clean, yet daring lines. In the evenings, when the fear really takes hold, so does my relentless strolling. Oh, you should see me stroll. I’m better at strolling than I am at sobbing (though I’m not better at sobbing than Famous Architect is at architecture) and keen-eyed readers will have noticed that my sobbing is not to be sniffed at.

I think I’ve nailed it.

“And twenty Camel Lights please. Thanks.” Me, Friday.

“Twenty Camel Lights. Please. Thanks.” Me, Saturday.

“Yes, and ten Camel Lights. Thanks.” Me, earlier today.

Seventeen words, all spoken to the same garage attendant and the only words I’ve spoken all weekend. I don’t want to speak to anyone and have turned my phone off. The only person I want to speak to for the time being is the garage attendant, and if I’m being honest I’d rather not have to speak to him. I’d prefer to just point and grunt.

Sexy, aren’t I? I’ve made other sounds; sobbing sounds mainly. You should see – you should hear – me sobbing. Oh you’d like it, I’m an excellent sobber. I’ve got sobbing nailed. Me and sobbing are pals. Why sob? Why not? It’s been a long time coming. Prior to this weekend I don’t think I’d properly addressed the breakdown of my marriage. I tried once when I was living in Clapton. My attempt involved spending most of the morning in the (mirrored) shower drinking Pernod out of the bottle and masturbating. Sexy, isn’t it? Occasionally I’d take a break and chainsmoke but my heart wasn’t really in the whole endeavour and at the end of my grieving session I didn’t really feel like I’d addressed much at all really. In fact, looking back, I wonder what on earth I was playing at.

I’m still not drinking by the way. I’d love to not be still not drinking, but I’m still not drinking. It’s tough, and made tougher by this borrowed flat I’m in being crammed with booze. Most of it hangs out in a locked cabinet. I unlock the locked cabinet, take out the bottles and then line up the bottles on my desk as I write and (in my head) swear at them. Fuck you Remy Martin XO, I think. Fuck you 10 year old Glenmorangie. Fuck you – really, fuck you – Bells. Fuck you Teachers – and you White Satin gin. Wow, I think, this is more like it, I’m doing brilliantly; I should do more of this, I should get in more.

But it doesn’t stop there, it never does. I take my friends back to their cabinet and lock it. Periodically, I open it and (in my head) swear at them. Good, isn’t it? All this? Haven’t I turned out well? Going mad in a flat in East Horsley. I was always going to go mad in a flat in East Horsley – it was so obvious.

But what better time to test out the whole madness versus creativity debate? More specifically, what better time to try and pitch Leisure Painter? Unfortunately Leisure Painter (‘Instructional articles on painting and fine art. Payment: £75 per 1000 words’) doesn’t have an email contact so they won’t be getting the benefit of my banana-sharp mind this evening. But Executive PA – they might. I flick to the Executive PA entry. ‘Business to business for working senior secretaries’, it reads, ‘Payment: £140 per 1000 words.’

And I begin to crumble. But mid-crumble it hits me. It feels as if God comes down to my borrowed flat in East Horsley and puts his hand on my shoulder and I say my eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth words of the weekend. “Fuck”, I say, “Of course.” Of course it’s going to drive me mad and of course I should be sobbing: it’s impossible. Trying to pitch 642 magazines that I don’t care about in an industry where Caitlin Moran can win Columnist of the Year is not only impossible, it’s stupid. And I’ve spent 16 months doing it. And I’m living in a borrowed flat and I owe pretty much everyone in the world money and I have a job in Mayfair as a professional writer which I need to concentrate on and just what in the hell am I doing trying to pitch the world. I should, I realise with a sigh and an entirely welcome loosening of the shoulders, just give up.

And so I do.

But not for long. Just as I’m closing the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook for what I hope is the last time I notice The Erotic Review entry, a few up from Executive PA. It reads: ‘Up-market literary magazine for sensualists and libertines. Length: 1000 words (articles and features), 1000-2000 (short stories).’

Could I sell them my wank-in-the-shower-with-Pernod story? Would sensualists and libertines like that? Possibly. I resolve to write it up on my commute from Surrey to Mayfair in the morning but if The Erotic Review doesn’t go for it, I reckon it could just about be the end.

Some good news: not only have I managed to stop drinking, I’ve managed to not stop stopping drinking. I’ll start again at some point. Oh, I’ll start again all right. I know I’ll start again. And I know you know I’ll start again. And I also know that you know that I know that you know I’ll start again. Stopping drinking, apparently, can lead to short-term confusion.

More good news: it turns out that stopping drinking can result in mental clarity. Clarity is both good and bad. Good, in that you can see things clearly. Bad, in that the things you can see clearly – curtains, meaning, other people – aren’t really worth seeing clearly. Still, there’s something to be said for detoxification, there must be otherwise the papers at this time of year (which, unfortunately, I can see clearly) wouldn’t be screaming about how fucking brilliant it is at every opportunity. I’ve yet to see the brilliance. Perhaps I will. Perhaps the grapes and muesli that I eat and the herbal teas that I drink and the walks in the country that I take really are something, but at the moment I can’t see it, at the moment all that the vitamins and air and clarity do is annoy the piss out of me and make me look forward to the day when I can drink or smoke or crack cocaine myself to death. Stopping drinking, apparently, can lead to depression.

Thankfully however, there’s even more good news: a friend of mine who is a GP (wish I was a GP) and my brother who is a scientist (wish I was a scientist) are getting a flat together in Finsbury Park (wish I was Finsbury Park). They say I can stay there in their alcove. According to my brother (wish I was my brother), the alcove is big enough to ‘just about’ house a sleeping bag. And according to the friend of mine (wish I was a friend of mine) I can stay there ‘for a bit’. Frankly, I can’t put into words how happy I am about this. Nor, simultaneously, can I put into words how depressed I am about becoming so happy about this – that at 35 I’m overjoyed that I can stay in an alcove ‘for a bit’ that is ‘just about’ big enough for a sleeping bag. That is in Finsbury Park.

I suppose my over-enjoyment lies in the prospect of getting out of Surrey and getting back in to London. There’s nothing to do in Surrey but drink and walk – and I’ve given up drinking. If walking isn’t careful, if walking continues to piss me off, then I’m going to give up that too. All I can do in Surrey, really, is pitch a bit more of the world.

And so with my eyes shut and pen in hand I flicked through the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook and blindly selected five publications that I’m determined to pitch this weekend. They are:

Leisure Painter

Digital Camera Buyer

Executive PA

Fly-Fishing & Fly-Tying

Backtrack

Fun, isn’t it? On a Friday night, doing this – it’s fun. Isn’t it fun? Oh, it’s so much fun. I can’t wait to pitch Backtrack in particular (“British railway history from 1820’s-1980’s”; payment £30 per 1000 words) but all the others are solid gold too. Assuming I haven’t gone mad or started drinking again (either, or both, entirely possible) expect to see pitches for some or all of the above by the end of the weekend.

It appears I’m experiencing the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned on the revelation that is Pitching the World that I tend to drink now and again. Well if I have – and I suspect I have – then it’s true. I do. For the last fifteen years I’ve drank almost every day and since the summer I’ve drank heavily every day and since my last post I’ve drank like a madman every day. On Saturday, after my New Years Eve celebrations had been going about a week, it all got a bit too much. On early Saturday afternoon I had to drink four cans in 15 minutes just to be able to get on the tube at Finsbury Park. And once I’d got off the tube from Finsbury Park, I had to drink another can to get me on the train at Waterloo. And once I had done that, I had to drink myself to Surrey and then drink myself from the train station at Horsley to my place a mile up the road in East Horsley and then I had to drink myself to sleep. This last bit, in particular, took some effort.

So I’ve decided to give up for a bit. For how long I don’t know, but for a bit. But what does one do when one gives up for a bit? If you’re anything like this one – and bad luck if you are – the options seem limited and terrifying. So far (and it’s been less than 48 hours so far. The bad bits are to come, apparently. The bad bits come in 72 hours) I’ve spent a lot of time walking from room to room and staring at things. I like to have a little shake now and again. I’ve been sweating lots. I’ve become fascinated by how, underneath the boozy exterior, emotionally delicate I am. I’ve been drinking lots of sugary drinks (good, apparently) and trying to take vitamins – though I’ve pretty much forgotten what vitamins are, and unless they’re in cigarettes then I’m not really taking vitamins.

This stuff is small fry though. In 72 hours, when the bad bits come, I can expect the DTs. It turns out the DTs are nowhere near as glamorous and far more dangerous than I had once thought and can lead to convulsions, fits, a stroke, a heart attack and powerful hallucinations involving snakes, spiders, and falling coins. The falling coins in particular strike me as odd, though a lot of things strike me as odd right now.

There is, however, hope. There is always hope. I’ve got responsibilities, you see. My love child, my weird kid in the attack, my darling Pitching the World needs looking after – and what better distraction than a barely-award winning blog that not that many people give a fuck about? What better distraction indeed. So, after a quick check that I’m not seeing any falling coins or snakes (I’m not) and a sugary drink (good, apparently) I open the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook for the first time in a long time. Although I haven’t pitched the publications in there alphabetically – I’ve jumped all over the place pitching whichever magazines appealed or paid the most – I’d carried a feeling around with me that my finest work was on the A’s; that if nothing else, the A’s were looking in good shape. Well they’re not. It appears that I’ve pitched the first six magazines listed in there (Accountancy; Accountancy Age; Accounting & Business; Acumen Literary Journal; Aeroplane Monthly; Aesthetica Magazine) then given up. Next on the list, rather alarmingly, is Africa-Asia Confidential.

I stare at the Africa-Asia Confidential entry for a long time. It seem that Africa-Asia Confidential is concerned with ‘news on the Africa-Asia axis’. I stare at the Africa-Asia Confidential entry for a longer time. I wonder if I know what the Africa-Asia axis is and if I did know what it was then would I know any news about it. I decide that I don’t and I wouldn’t. I’m not even sure if I know what an axis is. I stare again and decide that the best thing to do is stop staring at the Africa-Asia Confidential entry and go and have a sugary drink. Sugary drink drunk and snakes and falling coins not seen, I go back to staring at the Africa-Asia Confidential entry and, after much deliberation, decide that Africa-Asia Confidential can – for now – go and fuck itself. I move on to the next entry.

The next entry, far from hilariously, is Africa Confidential. Africa Confidential is not terribly dissimilar from its counterpart and contains ‘news and analysis of political and economic developments in Africa’. I stare at this entry for a while but not too long, quickly realising that I don’t really know a great deal about political and economic developments in Africa. If I hadn’t spent the last fifteen years drinking, I think, then I might do. But then again, if my nan had wheels she’d be a bicycle.

It’s going to be a bit of a slog, this.

I’m still ill. From now on, and unless I say otherwise, I’m always still ill. I’m also still in Surrey. Again, unless I say otherwise, I’m always still in Surrey. I can’t get out of Surrey. I might never be able to get out of Surrey. The rest of my life could be spent in Surrey. Surrey has got hold of me and won’t let go. I can’t get out because I’m both snowed in and I’m ill. I’m slowly, brilliantly, getting cabin fever. I haven’t spoken to another human being for four days. I speak to the television, or myself in the mirror and if things carry on I might start imagining that I’ve got a dog and speak to that. It’s a lot like The Shining down here in Surrey, except scarier and nowhere near as good.

So what to do? Well, the obvious answer is to drink and play with myself but my heart isn’t really in either – and besides, I’ve comically exhausted both options over the last few days. Instead, I’ve started to think about pitching again, to get the phenomenon that is Pitching the World back on its original course. Problem is – and, as regular readers will know, there’s always a problem – my Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook is stuck in my office in Mayfair and I’m stuck, with just a make-believe dog for company, here in Surrey.

Thankfully, there’s a solution. As regular readers will know, there’s always a solution. The solution, in this instance, lies with three magazines that have been left in the flat that I’m borderline squatting in in Surrey. And I’m going to pitch all three of the fuckers. Today. Later today, of course, after I’ve finished doing this and taken the dog for a walk.

The three magazines are Woman and Home, Waitrose Kitchen, and Olive. Now, if I was stuck in a flat in Surrey – and I am, I really am stuck in a flat in Surrey – then I couldn’t think of three magazines that I would least like to be stuck with. Or at least I would have thought that, until a second ago when I started looking at the October 2010 edition of Woman and Home. Have you seen the October 2010 edition of Woman and Home? It’s incredible, it’s like it was made for me. Woman and Home is my ideal magazine, I adore it. I’m going to subscribe.

Everything you need to get you through life you can learn from Woman and Home. “MAKE THIS THE WINTER YOU DON’T GET ILL – De-stress your life” sings one coverline and I think, yes, I wish this was the winter that I didn’t get ill. I wish I had read this back in the Autumn, I think, so that I didn’t get ill. Although if I hadn’t have gotten ill this winter, then I wouldn’t be stuck in Surrey and if I wasn’t stuck in Surrey (and I am, I definitely am) then I wouldn’t have been introduced to Woman and Home, so in fact I’m glad that this wasn’t the winter that I didn’t get ill. And there’s more, plenty more. “HAVE MORE MONEY” promises the cover, “New ways to bring in the cash – and stop it going out”. Wow, I think, this is definitely what I want. I want new ways to bring in the cash and I want to stop it going out. What else do I want? “BRIGHTER, SOFTER, YOUNGER – Secrets of fabulous skin & great hair every day”. Yeah, I want that too, especially every day. I want everything that Woman and Home can offer. I even want a 21 page Baking Special.

Yes, I’ll be pitching Woman and Home later, as soon as I come up with a suitable idea. As for Waitrose Kitchen and Olive, I don’t know where to start. I try to read them, but my mind is on other things, my mind is on Woman and Home. Still, I persevere. Waitrose Kitchen is a magazine about how to cook you and your lovely families lovely food and is full of good looking mums and dads with happy children. And all the food is lovely and beautifully shot and the editor’s letter is lovely (and yet completely fucking annoying. Example: “And here’s a good party conversation gambit: to share or not to share food? Small plates for all, or hands off my tucker?”), and all the adverts are lovely and the interviews are all innocuous and lovely and there is a feature on salt which is probably the loveliest feature on salt you’ll ever read.

Yet this loveliness doesn’t sit well with me. Although I may be living in Surrey and working in Mayfair, my life is a million miles from the lives depicted in Waitrose Kitchen. I can’t relate to it (yet, strangely, I can relate to the lives of the women in Woman and Home). I fear I will never have a lovely wife and lovely kids to serve lovely food to. I’ll be forever here, in Surrey, serving cups of tea and roll ups to my make-believe dog. If the editor of Waitrose Kitchen wants to send someone round to take some beautifully shot photographs of that, then he’s very welcome.

In the meantime, the pub beckons.

It’s been a while. Since you last heard from me, I’ve managed to get out of Dubai, get into London and get a job. I’ve also managed to get a flat, for free, for six months. I’m about to get paid. Oh, I’m all about getting stuff these days. You should see me get stuff. I might even get laid soon. I might even get to show one lucky woman how terrible I am in bed.

But not everything I’ve got has been good. I’ve got a bit madder and I’ve got ill. My first thought was that this was bad: getting madder and ill, I thought, is not what I want to be getting – I want to be getting other stuff. But then on my way into London to get to my new job this morning – my flat, for free, for six months is in Surrey – I realised that I wasn’t alone and that everyone has been getting ill. My train carriage was full of people coughing, snivelling, wheezing and having heart attacks and mini-fits and aneurisms and strokes and all sorts of other stuff and I realised that everyone travelling from Surrey to London at eight-something in the morning is either ill or mad and working in ill and mad jobs in an ill and mad city. When I realised this – when I started getting this – I felt strangely comforted.

What does this have to do with pitching? Well, nothing. Well, a bit. Because this morning as I was looking through the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook – for the first time in about five months – I realised that getting madder and ill is precisely what I need to get in order to pitch to the likes of Park Home & Holiday Caravan and Picture Postcard Monthly and Pensions World and if anything I need to get madder and iller.

Any ideas on how to achieve this, please let me know.