Morning, person.

There's something about really early in the morning - not just that it's really early, either. An added coldness, a sharpness in the air. Everything is much louder at half five, like people's bodies just being awake somehow creates a background thrum that lifts everything up a notch.

I'm not keen on getting up so early in the morning - of course, no-one is, but I'm a terrible morning person. I do need lots of sleep. Thatcher famously got by on 25 minutes of sleep a night, but she turned out batshit so I'm basically proud to need at least 9 hours a night. Genuinely. I got five last night and I feel like I've had a stroke.

I've been getting up early to commute to London for a number of weeks - not the best idea, I'll admit, but I've had some fun freelance work on the go and commuting for a few days a week is much cheaper than actually moving to London. Depressingly, the door-to-door commute from Coventry-London isn't really that much longer than the London-London commute I might otherwise be doing.

When did that happen? When did we decide it was OK to spend three or four hours a day in intimate contact with sweating strangers on unreliable public transport? It's a peculiar thing. I always used to think of the tube as a benign, almost friendly thing - something that took you to the fun stuff. Now it is malevolent and out to get me, ruin my day.

Back when I lived in Bangor the office was a 15-minute walk away from the house, which I actually thought was a bit too long, so I drove sometimes. It was quite nice to be able to finish at half five in the evening and by 5.45pm to be sat in the living room with a cup of earl grey watching the West Wing.

There's that French saying - 'plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose' - the more things chance, the more they stay the same. It's really not true, stupid France. The more things change, the more things change. And that's as sage as I can be at this time of day. Time to get ready.

Checking out the birds.

I believe it is a common fallacy that it is somehow more satisfying to spend a day indoors when it is raining but you should rather go outside when the weather becomes fairer to appreciate the excitement or whatever the hell people do out there.

Quite the opposite, chums. I only gain any satisfaction from spending a day indoors when it is gloriously sunny outside - otherwise, what are you actually missing? A day when it is raining is precisely the right time to leave the house and do something. I find that a great many experiences and feelings are defined more by what they are not than in fact what they are.

My mum recently forced me to go on a walk to a nature reserve because it was nice outside. Going for walks is a peculiar form of child abuse, because although it is not illegal I do consider it morally reprehensible to tear offspring from the bosom of the DVD player or the edification of a good book and the comforting glow of a warm spot to spend some time staring at wildlife you cannot fathom and birds you don't recognise.

The place was filled with twitchers, toting three-foot long binoculars on stands and getting excited when some other tit comes along and twitters from afar. There was quite a buzz at one end of the reserve where we had waded through hundreds of metres of damp and filth to stand at the back of a crowded hutch and not see a kingfisher that had been spotted that morning. It was probably embarrassed at the attention from these avian paparazzi and assorted weirdos, who had clearly risen with the lark and had been there all day, with their subdued clothing (I had my lovely bright red anorak on - frowned upon I gathered), flasks and their snot and rain-spattered faces.

The only things I recognised from my shoebox-like refuge were a swan and a pigeon, which my neighbour informed me was a dove mere seconds before he arrived face down in a marshy pit to suffer a horrid and undignified death.

It is a peculiarly British thing to consider suffering at the hands of nature to be somehow good for the soul, when all you really accomplish is chilblains and insufferably muddy shoes.

A thing about trains.

One of my great bugbears at the moment is the onboard shop announcement. Both generally and specifically.

Generally, in that it is deployed at ear-splitting volume at the very moment you have got yourself comfortable in your battery chicken seat.

Specifically, in the amateur delivery of the message. I don't know whether they are trained to do this, but every onboard shop attendant on Virgin trains (the onboard shop is in coach C, unfortunately we no longer accept credit or debit cards) has got so bored of running through the entire contents of what they have in the onboard shop - that is, tea, coffee, a selection of magazines (three of them in fact), three-day-old sandwiches and a overpriced chocolate - that by the time they get to the end of this mammoth speech the entire last sentence gets mangled. 'We-also-havva-selectionof-beer-swine-sands-pirrits...' It's mental, and I don't even know how they do it.

And seriously - why is it always called the onboard shop? I get it - it's on the train, I kind of hoped it would be. It's the kind of arse-achingly patronising tautology that we just don't need in an enlightened society. Because it sounds stupid.

But anyway - what has really been exercising me lately is the new mention of 'speciality teas'.

What. The. Hell.

The onboard shop attendant (the onboard shop will be closing in ten minutes, following which there will be an at-seat trolley service for those of you too fat to get up or fearful of getting lost) heralds its presence like a minor royal at a hospital wing opening, but the idea just doesn't make any sense to me.

If we're talking 'special', then clearly not, because the stuff is being dispersed albeit at riotous prices on tilting train that smells faintly of damp and urine. This isn't Fortnums.

But what would a cup of tea's speciality be? Might it speak four languages fluently, crochet or jig a nifty paso doble? Exceptional mintiness is no speciality, more a mere trait. And I'm quite sure that camomile doesn't hydrate that much better. Which means we're left with nothing - but then hyperbole and cynical attempts are bluffing luxury at the British transport system to a tee.

Quiet, please.

'You simply must tell me when you're free, so we can pencil something in with Tim, Bonnie, ek-setter-ah, ek-setter-ah.'

This plummy, alkaline voice had already been getting on my tits since before I had even got on the train, such was her resonance down the platform. I thought I was safely ensconced in a separate carriage, but no such luck and this ridiculous wrapping up phase was driving me fairly homicidal.

I mean, who even says etcetera out loud? And if you are going to be so bold as to pronounce it in public, why would you not get it right, instead of trotting out obnoxiously false Latin and nauseam?

I am too embarrassed to speak on my phone in such a hushed public environment as to have everyone listening in - I seek gracious refuge in the arms of the quiet coach where I can. And what a marvellous conceit that is. The quiet buzz not of diligent industry but inappropriately cold air conditioning.

None of the usual wilds and screams in this oasis. Perhaps the occasional idiot who hasn't seen the sign, or thinks that their calls are OK. But sustained peer pressure has seen off the lager louts and babies and irritating wimmin arranging their cloying social lives over their handset. It has become a popular choice - even as I tap mouse-like into my phone there is a man who has crammed himself into the mid-carriage luggage rack, such is his desire for a life of calm.

Now it's all very well on this train, but just what do we do the rest of the time?

Unputdownable.

Isn't it great when you get a book that you just want to spend more time with? I mean that point of attachment where you consider staying on the bus, an extra tube stop or you hang about at your train station until everyone else is safely off.

The sort of book that keeps you up at night because you can't put it down, and when you do it distracts you because you can't think of anything else. You grieve a little when you finish it, because that imaginary universe is somewhere you'd like to stay.

I'm reading '20 Years After' at the moment - it's Alexandre Dumas' second book in the musketeer series and it's really good. I intend to wax lyrical on my ebook reader at some point, but it has done my life proud in bringing me and Monsieur Dumas together. I have really connected with these French aristocratic characters, which says a lot about me I suppose. Although I probably have more in common with the grumpy lackeys than any of the comtes and dukes...

I could go on, but I have a book to get back to.

The best of my blogroll.

I decided on this fair Sunday to highlight some great (and quite diverse) posts I've enjoyed from the past week or so...

Firstly, Tim Footman (although I know him as @CulturalSnow) does a good short post here on blogging - it's something I've been thinking about recently to write about at some point soon, but blogging has changed the way we, I, write, and it's something I've only realised enough to reflect on in recent months. Everything is instant or it's worthless, the art of contemplation, reflection and conversation has been lost from blogging. In fact, I can't even remember the last time I linked to someone else's post and had something to say about it.

I love shelves and furniture and decorating, so the Bookshelf blog is a particular source of delight to me anyway, but I do love the thought of having a special reading chair that I could lounge in and keep my reading delights together in one special place. Preferably by a fire and near a source of snacks... I love the idea of a book snug, though, and my favourite ever post is something I have to have in a house one day - a floating library.

My friend CG is spending some time in Geneva working in and around the United Nations - I'm very much enjoying her insight into living in Switzerland and how different that is to the strange pace of life in London. Her latest post is on the referendum that's being held in Geneva to allow shops to open on a Sunday. When I lived in Germany teaching in a couple of schools for a year I liked the shops closing at 12pm most days and not opening on a Sunday, it forced you to do things differently, assess your priorities and plan your life a bit more solidly. 24-hour supermarkets are not our friends...

Ben is the king of gifs, and I don't know where he finds this crap, but he is all the surprise and delight of the blogosphere. His latest post is on why girls shouldn't light their farts. I'll have you know I ROFLed.

My other friend Ben is the reigning world memory champion, possibly the biggest minor celebrity short of the government minister in my telephone book that I know - he riffs comfortably on his blog every day in single posts on crazy things from having to perform card tricks at customs to his thoughts on the facelifted Dandy. I love his famous brain.

Finally, there's Cliff - I'm his biggest fan (papa-paparazzi) and I crave his eloquence and thoughtfulness. Unfortunately I'm far too self-obsessed and glib to manage it, but reading his posts remains a great pleasure - The Joneses Have Chips is funny, insightful, poignant and articulate and each time Cliff posts you never get the same thing twice. See what I said right at the beginning, about those lost arts? Cliff is the craftsman.

I’m sitting on the train...

I’m sitting on the train, peering out of the window into the darkness wondering where I am and what’s out there. Wondering about all the things you miss when you’re blasting through the world at 125mph and it’s dark, head lolling and mind escaping.

We pass a slow train coming in the other direction, it passes so fast that the LED destination panels the length of the train spelled out ‘London Midland’ in floating ethereal text right by my window while the rest of the train was a raging blur.

Just one of those moments.

The only thing I can teach you.

Sometimes I feel wise well beyond my years, most of the time I just feel like a 26-year-old kid. The only thing I can teach you is that I know nothing. I always thought growing up that adults were the experts, but even the experts I know are not particularly expert and the adults are hardly adults.

The conceit that grown-ups are in control is absolutely necessary for the world to keep going and for childhood to weave its magic, for hopefully one kid will slip through the net and make some potential out of the scrambled eggs on toast we call life.

The only thing I can teach you is that we’re always learning. If adults aren’t on top of things it’s because they’re still getting there – and I’ve never met a 90-year-old with all the answers, either. I think it’s a hunger thing – if you hunger to learn and foster that childish inquisitiveness within you it makes life so much more interesting.

What I have met are people who think they’ve finished learning – they think they know it all, when what they don’t know is that they really don’t. Half-finished novellas who live in a sort of blithe tortured ignorance of all the world they’ve not seen. If there’s anything I don’t want to become, then it’s that.

What scares the shit out of me.

I don't like things - spiders, snakes, Janet Street Porter - but what really scares the shit out of me is boredom. I hate the idea of getting bored. Funnily enough what really used to scare me when I was younger was the fact that no-one at school was teaching me how to arrange a gas supply or pay my taxes.

Whenever I leave the house I have a big filled with one of my digital cameras, a notebook, a number of pens, something (perhaps two things, in case I get bored) to read, my diary (moleskine, natch - can occasionally double for a notebook), my phone and usually a bottle of water. I might never use any of these items, but I feel that much more assured knowing that they're there.

Also, Monica Galetti off Masterchef.

Weird things I do, a short series – 5

5. One of many mottos is ‘if you’re happy and you know wash your hands’. I’m occasionally a bit twitchy about dirty stuff. It’s usually when I get tired that OCD emerges from me like the Hulk out of Bruce Banner, but luckily I can carry alcohol gel (and it has to have alcohol in it – that soothing sharp smell, the sweet sting) whilst he has to secrete a spare pair of trousers and a shirt at strategic intervals.

I welcome balloonists.

Welcome, my little Orange balloon-themed game playing chums, it's so nice to be able to play host to this auspicious and exciting occasion. I feel like the bloke who runs that rat in a drain pipe game at the Summer Fete. All that effort and you're only killing time until the raffle results are called anyway.

Regular readers can click on the nodding dolphin to try and figure out how it all works, I haven't the faintest clue how it all works. At any rate - best of luck, balloonists. It's all a darn safer than that dangerous fete de chance that your balloonist predecessors Steve Fossett and Richard Branson played out on the News at Ten.

Isn't this modern stuff marvellous, though? The thought of some treasure hunt played out across the internet, we're one step from an episode of Murder She Wrote conducted entirely through Skype and a spot of Facebook chat. Not a bad idea for an episode, although Angela Lansbury does like that typewriter...

Weird things I do, a short series - 4

4. I can only get to sleep lying on my front with my head facing to the right. I really cannot get to sleep on my back or side, it's just wrong for me. I think this is my mother's fault (calm down, Sigmund) because she used to put me on my front to sleep as a baby.

Weird things I do, a short series - 3

3. I have to plan a route back that's different to the way I came. Even if it's just on the other side of the road. If I have got lost then I prefer to go the long route than simply turn round and retrace my steps. I think this is some psychological desire to be doing new things. Or I could just be weird.

Weird things I do, a short series - 2

2. I give my shoes a shake every morning before I put them on - no real rational reason. In 2002 in Croatia I found two scorpions in my pants. In 2005 I put a pair of shorts on and the biggest spider in the universe tumbled down the back of my leg. Both occasions haunt me to this day.

I have been Formsprung - question 3

Q3. If you were going to grow a moustache, what shape would you choose?

I am afraid that I shall have to reject the premise of the question entirely. I am distinctly anti-moustache, I cannot see any occasion - whether for charity or not (sorry poor people and testicles) - where I would spend some time actually attempting to grow a moustache.

I'm just not that good with facial hair - I grow a beard like Keanu Reeves, it makes me look like a dim Maplin sales assistant and I don't even know that much about electronics. In fact, every time I buy stuff there I end up having to take things back because I consistently buy the wrong stuff. A moustache? Out of the question.

Although...maybe if I was famous and going to the Emmys, a stylish goatee.

Remember - you can still ask me a question here. 

Weird things I do, a short series - 1

1. When the dishwasher finishes I have to open it up and stick my face in the gout of rinse aid-infused steam that comes billowing out. No reason, I just really quite like it.

I have been Formsprung - question 2

Q2. Top five films please.

Top five films is kind of an ambiguous request in itself, but I appreciated that politeness, you've clearly been brought up well, anonymous questioneer.

I have picked films that aren't necessarily the greatest films in the world, but I love to watch them. My litmus test for any DVD purchase is "Could I watch this film over and over again?" Here are my top five films I could watch over and over again:

5. True Lies
'So far gentlemen you're not blowing my skirt up' - this film contains one of the greatest cameos of all time, that of the tremendous Charlton Heston. It is fabulously watchable and funny every time you see it - I think Arnie Schwarzenegger does a nice line in wry comedy. Admittedly it gets a little droopy towards the end, but then so many films do as they waddle their way towards a clumsy denouement.And I still can't get my head round an Austrian expat with an obvious accent being a US spy.

4. The American President
I am fascinated by US politics and the Office of the President of the United States. I love that this was Aaron Sorkin's try-out for the West Wing (same Oval Office as the first series, incidentally) and that so much of the snappy dialogue is already there. Michael Douglas and Annette Bening are compelling leads, and it's not often you see a romcom dealing with the most powerful man in the world. See also; Dave.

3. The Bourne Identity
Cerebral thriller, has car chase, has pseudo macguffin in the form of Jason Bourne's memory. Top film.

2. Ronin
Cerebral thriller, has perhaps the ultimate car chase, has Drax out of Moonraker painting models of samurai, has an actual macguffin in the form of Something In A Suitcase. Top film.

1. You've Got Mail
I first watched this film on the boat from Harwich to Hamburg for the German exchange at school, so it must have been 1999 - I fell in love with the Upper West Side in Manhattan, that literary culture, the dinner parties and the wit and the coffee shops. I am not ashamed to say I cried a little in that living room-sized cinema on that noisy boat when Kathleen Kelly was stood up by NY152 at the cafe.

I guess for me there was still a romance in the unknown of the internet at that time - I was writing to lots of people around the world via the magic of email and learning things about all sorts of places I shall never see. It was all stupid penpal stuff, mock eloquent and full of soliloquys on our favourite television programmes. I think the internet has lost most of its romance, it's all shagged out.

Why is this my favourite film though? Because it is the one film I could watch over and over and over again - I could watch it straight away having just watched it. If I got stuck on a desert island I would take this film with me. I just get lost in the romance of it - I'm no intellectual when it comes down to it, I'm a soppy poet, and I love Meg Ryan films. When Harry Met Sally is a close run for top spot in my affections, but the hair gets on my nerves.

Good question.

Remember - you can still ask me a question here. 

I have been Formsprung - question 1

Q1. Are the kitchens from Ikea any good?

I have mixed feelings about kitchens - familiarity breeds contempt and all that - but I do have to say that I like Ikea kitchens. I lived and breathed the things for eight months there, advising people on features that they would be stuck with for 10, 15 years. That's a great responsibility to bear when the clueless are relying on your expertise and support.

Designing kitchens and coming up with ideas and solutions for the ridiculous nooks and awkward measurements that people would come in with on the backs of napkins was probably the most fun part of the job. I liked those vacuous, shallow relationships - I can sustain interest in people for the half hour, 45 minutes it takes to knock something out. Most people can manage to remain interesting for that long, I find.

Are the kitchens any good? The kitchens are great - solid, resistant to wear and tear, stylish. But they are limited by the imagination of the people who own them. It was frustrating to see where you could come up with something quite creative but there was no desire there, only a lack of taste. The glossy red and white kitchens are usually heinous, and I'm not a fan of the fussy wood finishes either.

There's tremendous flexibility, though, and the kitchens are so much cheaper than the competition but people just don't realise. I had people come in with quotes for a £14,000 kitchen from somewhere else that we could do for £4,000 - that's a holiday and a couple of decent cars...

Remember, you can still ask me a question here.

I do some posts which answer your questions.

I did that thing on Formspring not so long ago. Well, ages ago - remember back in January 2010, when that was popular? Who would have thought that an entire website based on someone asking you a question but not telling you who it is would not have taken off in a massive way? I didn't see that coming.

Anyway - I answered your questions then, and I am ready for my second bout Mr De Mille.

The idea is that you can ask me a question, and whilst it will appear on my Formspring page, the answer to said question will form the basis of a 'post de blog' (as they're known in France) right here. This is going to fun, I can feel it.

3, 2, 1...go. http://www.formspring.me/samburnett

More questions than answers.

So you thought you'd try something different, eh?

Yes.

Is this question and answer thing doing it for you?

I suppose.

What's it all about?

Well, you ask the questions and I give the answers, but in reality it's actually the same person writing the whole thing. They do it in the papers all the time.

Really?

Sure. It's an easy way to use up lots of space without really writing anything of significance.

Oh.

We're not in 2005 anymore, Toto.

I've got a copy of 2005: Blogged somewhere in the attic - a compilation of some of the most profound, interesting, witty and insightful posts of that year.

It's like everyone has split up into breakout groups and closed the door for whatever seminar they're in. 2005 was the tea and coffee stage.

It's just not the same anymore, is it? Back when we used to read widely and link things and have discussions.

You could launch any thought into the ether you liked, or could write an essay. An obituary, a polemic or an ode. You could play around and have some fun and discover some wonderful things.

If you do a short blog post now you'll get done for copyright infringement by twitter, everyone has a blog and all the fun anonymous bloggers have got bored or been outed or both. All the good bloggers have got book deals and become celebrities and changed. Maybe that's what the problem is.

The world moves, or you have to move, or something. It's the difference between jogging or being on a treadmill. I actually like watching the news while I'm at the gym, but that's not progressing, seeing new sights and experiencing that exercise in a visceral way.

I know I've missed the boat, but I don't know where it was going or even what it looked like. There's nothing punky or subversive or particularly innovative about it now. I must admit I don't put any effort into discovering new blogs like I used to. Where would I even start?

I don't think blogging is necessarily dead - if anything it's as active as ever, just more middle-aged and resigned to whatever it has become. That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad at all either - we're just not in 2005 anymore, Toto.

I see z(-list) people.

I find myself getting upset because I never see famous people on the underground. Every time my mum goes anywhere she always sees famous people. Maybe this is like that thing with that kid Halley's Comet Osment and that bald film star Bryce Willis Howard. Now I think that I don't want to be able to see famous people.

But really, I'd love to catch a glimpse of a passing fad in the flesh and make homage to a conceited, shallow celebrity-worshipping culture, to pay my respects at the altar of pointless idolatry. Also, I get really bored.

The tube is terribly boring, there's only so much amusement to be had from reading the adverts and playing spot the terrorist, or staring down at an ageing dame's bald spot and flinching at the hairs emanating from the wizened ears of a once-great businessman.

Perhaps famous people just don't get the tube, it isn't the done thing...