Inside the Mind of an Insomniac

11.07pm, that’s good. That’s acceptable. If the kids wake me up at 7 that’s nearly 8 hours sleep. The recommended 8 hours. That’s good, except it’s usually more like 6am. That’s fine. We can deal with that. Mmm, nice comfy bed, so tired, drifting… Is the window open? I need the window open.

Ooh must remember to get that new baby card and gift tomorrow. How can I fit that into the day? I could pop to the shops on the way to the play date, so I’ll go to that little Tesco on the way. But… a card from Tesco? Surely I can do better than that. Maybe I could just pop into M&S, could get a gift there too… No, stop this. It’s time to sleep, not to play out tomorrow in your head. Think about it tomorrow.

Right, stop thinking, clear your mind, empty it, clear it out… see now you’re just thinking the words. Stop talking to yourself in your head woman. It’s the first sign of madness (there have been other signs, you’re skating close to the edge here) no, don’t think about that now.

OK back to clearing, and we’re clearing, we’re emptying, clear and empty, empty and clear, there’s those words again, try thinking in pictures. Right, pictures. A house (ooh that looks like a Mr Men house, maybe Mr Greedy, or is it Mr Messy, definitely Mr Messy, wonder if there is any significance about the fact that it was Mr Messy’s house that popped into my head?) No, we’re thinking pictures, PICTURES. A dog, a cat (did I remember to give Expensive Cat his medicine?)

You’re thinking again.

OK let’s try relaxing. Start with the top of your head, and relax your head, soft head, relax your face, soft face, no that’s forcing, you don’t need to look like you’ve had a stroke, just smooth out the muscles, now the neck, ow ow cramp, OK stop relaxing.

Maybe I should just get up and do something else, OK let’s get up. No, you need to sleep. Get up. Stay in bed. Get up. No, don’t. Aaaargh.

Just calm down and try something else. The beach thing. You’re on a beach, listening to the waves. I can hardly remember what it’s like, has it really been five years since our last holiday? Really must address that issue, we’ve just spend £500 on a darn cat for gods sake I’m sure we can find a few hundred for a week in Bognor next year. So the beach thing didn’t work.

Mum always used to tell me to think of black when I couldn’t sleep. Right, black. Black. BLACK! Isn’t black a weird word? Stop it. Just think black. Amy Winehouse Back to Black (god is she really dead? Still can’t get my head around it) stop, we’re thinking black. Little black dress, black sky, Black Sunday (What was that? I’m sure it’s something I should know at my age), oh for goodness sake woman this isn’t a word association game, it’s a getting to sleep exercise.

Look at the man over there, snoring away. How can he be sleeping like that while I’m going through this turmoil? It isn’t fair. Maybe if I just give him a little kick he’ll wake up and keep me company. Or maybe an elbow in the ribs… Jesus, he’s a deep sleeper. I’m so jealous. Now you’re just getting angry, that is not helping.

Right what time is it? 1.07. Oh god, I’ve been at this for 2 hours? I’m exhausted. If I go to sleep now that’s 4 hours and 53… now 52, minutes. Ok that’s doable. If you just sleep now, now, NOW! That didn’t work either.

You clearly can’t sleep because there’s too much going on in your mind, so write it all down:

-         buy card

-         cat medicine

-         holiday???

-         Practice serene relaxed facial expressions in mirror

-         What was Black Sunday?

-         Buy some herbal sleeping pills.

That’s better. OK time to sleep. Mmm comfy bed. What time is it now? 2am. OK I can live on 4 hours sleep. When the kids were babies I lived on much less sleep, I did eat more cake in those days however. Oooh, cake. If I get no sleep I can totally justify eating cake tomorrow. Stop it, we’ve already cleared the mind, don’t start adding new things to the list.

Just sleep. Soft things, cloudy, soft pillows, nice and relaxed, floating, it’s working! What was all that nonsense about not being able to sleep? Mmm, drifting…

“MUMMY? It’s morning!”

Oh bollocks.

It’s time… to face… the “MUSIC”

The X Factor started again this weekend. Oh joy.

The ‘audition stages’ used to be my favourite bit of any talent show. Misguided people of all shapes and sizes prefacing their performances with “I wanna be a legend”, before being shot down by Simon Cowell saying they sound like a creaky ironing board. Fantastic singers reduced to a sob story to the same old sad song. But these last few seasons I have to admit even I am getting a bit bored of it. They can’t fool me with their new panel, it’s nothing new.

Apart from it being the same old, same old, I’m sick and tired of these programmes taking over my life. It feels like The Apprentice just finished (great for pseudo intellectuals who think that the X Factor is beneath them) which took up one hour of a fairly innocuous Wednesday night. But the talent shows take up our entire Saturday nights, sometimes dragging over onto Sunday night like an ill-advised hangover. I remember the days when Saturdays were meant for going out clubbing, meeting friends in the pub or at least sitting at home chatting over a bottle of wine and some music, made by people who got their break the old fashioned way. And Big Brother started this week, that’s another hour a day. I can feel any spare time I had being inhaled by the telly. And use of the V+ box is futile in this instance, if you don't watch it within 24 hours you may as well not bother because before you know it you're behind.

I have purposely tried to avoid the last couple of seasons of the X Factor but inevitably I get sucked in and within a few weeks I am shouting at some poor deluded person on the telly who has the gall to get up there and murder the crap out of any Adele number. Barely a murmur of conversation passes between the man and me, except to sing along to the sad story song (What about now? What about todaaaaaay), and joining in with the phone mime whenever a contestant is desperate enough to use it.

I love telly, but I am really starting to appreciate having the 200+ channels that our cable package provides me with. I can forgive the fact that they dedicate 10 or so channels to crime drama throughout the ages (double bill of Morse, followed by Midsummer, followed by Taggart, followed by Lewis, followed by Rosemary and Thyme, that’s some seriously samey programming) someone must watch it, having that many channels I can spare a few. But the original 5 channels just seem to churn out the same old guff week after week. It’s not like I’m tuning into BBC 4 every day (only on occasions when I’m feeling particularly intellectual) but I do like being able to watch random American talk shows and documentaries about people being buried alive under piles of their own rubbish. Thank god for the digital age, it came at just the right time. Can you imagine only having the choice between Strictly or X Factor every week?

OK if I hate it so much why do I watch it? It’s kind of like fast food. We all profess to hate it but can’t help but be lured by the aroma of a Big Mac as we’re wandering past and before we know it we’re addicted. I suppose they aren’t going to be getting rid of MacDonald’s anytime soon, so we shouldn’t expect anything less with talent TV. But like MacDonald’s, one occasionally is a nice treat, but have it day in day out and it starts to get cloying, and makes you fat.

I suppose it’s just all part of our greedy nature as a whole. We find something we think we like and feast ourselves on it until we are busting out of our jeans and can’t seem to stop. And the television companies, like the fast food giants, know just how to play us so we keep on consuming. Ooh there’s going to be a “new twist” on X Factor this season (like MacDonald’s limited editions), better watch it to find out what it is.

I mean, come on, even Simon Cowell is bored of it. Going off to the States to churn out his Got Talent franchise, in a feeble attempt to branch out and do something different. Come on Simon, we all know it’s the same flipping thing with the addition of the odd performing blind dog and a kids dance troop or ten.

So it's the usual bizarre mix of creepy old men, gobby teenagers and slightly scary middle aged housewives to weed out, then we can get excited about the real talent, before they are devoured by the industry machine, churn out a couple of predictably pants tracks and eventually fade in obscurity. But that’s another rant entirely. I'm not even going to attempt to avoid it this year, I'm kind of curious as to how things will go in the absence of Simon's cutting remarks. Somehow I don't think Gary Barlow is going to think up as good a put downs, but I'll give him an audition.