Welcome

I live alone. I've only been doing this for a few months though, and I'm not sure yet that I'm quite used to it. I've never lived alone before, ever. In many ways it can be quite liberating – for all the obvious reasons – but in many ways it can be quite maddening. I've never been a person for chatting on the telephone, so some evenings if I start to go stir-crazy and crave human contact, I go out for a drink just to check that the world is still spinning out there (my apartment is very quiet).

I don't mind sitting in a bar on my own, but I wonder what other people think of me? It goes without saying that they must view me (if they even notice me at all) as a sad old loser, and it's easy to think of myself in that way too. But it's not true. Drinking alone gives you a great opportunity to people watch and like all writers, I'm good at that. Too good actually, because sometimes when I'm not alone, my friends accuse me of not paying them enough attention; too roving is my eye.

I can't do it for long, though. I only ever have one drink. To have two drinks alone in a bar would seem too sad, too lost. I sometimes take a book with me, but it's difficult to read and watch the antics of my fellow drinkers at the same time.

Sometimes I just wander the streets so that I can take in the bacchanalian scenes of debauchery taking place. I live in the very centre of a large city; in an area specifically designated as a place of special binge-drinking. Often I see blood, vomit, piss – all generously disgorged onto the city's pavements of gold, as if the emission of bodily fluids is something we should all share. I see half-eaten kebabs, pizzas or chips thrown carelessly into shop doorways, or hurled from the lowered black windows of some passing limousine. Sometimes though, I see dancing and laughter, and kissing.

Hogarth would have loved it.