Last weekend saw another PageFour review on www.download.com, and would you believe it, she got a whopping 5 stars. The download figures may be low, the sales figures lower still, but the feedback from where it really counts is still as positive as ever.

So a special thanks to trystwiththemoon for posting such a favourable impression of PageFour on a public forum. And no, it wasn’t me writing under one of my many aliases. I’d be far too afraid of being found out to pull off something like that, not to mention the negative publicity that would surely follow. But then, they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity…

This moving business is no fun. I remember the days when moving from place to place involved tossing a few unwashed pairs of socks into a backpack, putting my boots on, and walking out the door. When did it become an operation that required weeks of planning?

I’ve spent the past five days packing boxes, filling bags full of unwanted clothes and books for the local charity shop, cancelling direct debits, and arranging refunds for all sorts of utility bills - why the hell was I paying £45 a month for water anyway? I mean sure, I had a bath every day and washed the dishes, but I could have used goat’s milk for that sort of money. My address had to be changed in about fifteen different places, none of which accept UNKNOWN as a valid place of residence. Two of my bank accounts insist on a UK address, and everyone seems to get all offended at my inability to produce a postcode. Ireland’s a small country guys - get a clue.

I blame the computer programmers myself, living and working in their own little insular worlds, unaware of the Irish ability to work out where we are without the aid of six digit combinations of letters and numbers.

The clock’s ticking. Seven days remain and my city living comes to an end. I’d like to be able to say that I’m sad to go, that I’ll miss the crowds and the car fumes, but I’d be lying; truth is I can’t wait to board that plane.

This past week I’ve been making final use of the National Health Service that English people complain about so much - checking the blood pressure, sorting out that annoying little ear ache that keeps popping up, that sort of thing. Ireland hasn’t embraced the whole ‘that’s what your pay taxes for‘ thing when it comes to health care yet, so I thought I’d make sure to get my money’s worth before leaving.

The freezer is empty and the cupboards are almost bare. By the end of the week I’ll be living on pasta topped with instant cheese sauce, and maybe a touch of Cajun seasoning if I haven’t run out by then. The removal company are emptying the flat on Thursday, which leaves me with three days to kill before boarding the plane.

Sunday morning I’ll be tossing those few pairs of unwashed socks into my bag, putting my boots on, and walking out the door to the sounds of Van Morrison on the iPod. Now that brings back memories. It was always Van the Man singing ‘I got to go back…‘ in my ear as I sat on buses or trains in the past, leaving one godforsaken town behind and heading for another just like it.

Only this time, the words of the song actually fit.

I’m sorry, but I have to post this. Every couple of days I check my blog stats - not out of some pathetic desire to see if my readership has hit double digits, more out of an insatiable curiosity over how readers are finding their way here.

You see, people are strange. I worked this out years ago, but I’ve been keeping it to myself. Wouldn’t do to offend and all that…

Over the past few months I’ve had some … unique … search strings typed into Google and MSN, but one of today’s offerings wins hands down. Would the guy who typed ‘HEIDI KLUM AND HER MONGREL CHILDREN‘ into MSN please stand up and explain yourself?

I mean, come on, what exactly did you want to know? Does Heidi Klum even have any children? I blame Seth Godin. If it weren’t for him, Heidi would never have had a mention on this blog, and let’s not even start on…

Compliments of the Snarky one:

Some Basic Guidelines on Writing Well

Well, it made me laugh.

I remember London in the good old days, back when I was eighteen years old and working for slave wages in the Royal Albert Hall. I was living in a grotty room in Wood Green and thought my pay check of £160 a week was the greatest thing ever. London was fresh and new, with its red buses and escalators that went on forever. It was a big adventure with an element of tradition thrown in - sixteen years ago it was almost unheard of for an Irishman not to emigrate. Who was I to fly in the face of tradition?

Over the years, I found myself returning to London again and again. I abandoned Trinity College Dublin in favour of University College London - please don’t ask why, as I’m a little embarrassed to say. I settled in West London as I trained to become a hot shot computer programmer, and returned again when my career took me from the Home Counties to the banks of the Thames.

And now I’m leaving.

I’ve grown tired of the busy streets and the constant rush, the anonymous flats with the next door neighbours I’ve never met, the four wheel drives that have never been off the tarmac, and the growing disparity between the happy families with two cars and a holiday home, and the passengers who ride the buses with me every morning on their way to low paying jobs in shops and factories.

There’s nothing to hold me here anymore, no reason to stay beyond fear of change. I’ve already kissed the day job and the career goodbye, what’s one more big change added to the list? I’m moving back to ye olde country, back to where it all began: the green fields and country lanes of Ireland.

My new business venture (may it be fruitful and full of success!) is about to kick off, and it makes little difference if I’m living in the cosmopolitan centre of the world, or a fallen down cottage in the middle of a field. Give me a broadband connection and I’m good to go.

It’s the right decision, and I can’t wait.

So here’s the thing. You work for The Company for a few years, doing whatever it is they hired you to do. It’s a job and it pays the rent - in some cases it pays a very large rent and even buys you a nice car and a great big plasma screen TV. But it’s just a job and you tell yourself ‘When I grow up I’m going to be an astronaut,‘ never realising you’re already grown up and if you were going to be an astronaut you’d be one by now. So it turns out your life is the one you’re living, not the one you dreamed about living - that this is it, and tomorrow is really today.

That’s the key you see: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOMORROW.

There’s nothing morbid about this sort of thinking, but where does it leave us? Watching Dead Poet’s Society and channeling Robin Williams as he urges his perfectly Dawson like charges to ‘Seize the day‘?

For many of us, the day job comes closer than anything to defining who we are. When we meet a stranger at a party or in a bar, the first question we ask will invariably be ‘What do you do?‘ as if their means of paying the rent or mortgage is the single most important thing about them. We ask this question because we think it means something; we think it’s important; and we think it’s important because despite everything many of us pretend to believe, despite all the times we’ve listened to Robin Williams and Janis Joplin, we really believe that the amount of money someone makes tells us a lot about them.

And it does. If someone works 14 hours a day and never sees their kids awake for 5 days in succession, it does tell us a lot about them. If children spend more time with a nanny or an au pair than they do with their parents, it tells us a HELL OF A LOT about those parents. They have ‘important‘ jobs, earn lots of money, drive a nice car, and have an expensively decorated home they never see. The day job is clearly the most important part of some people’s lives.

But was it always? Didn’t they ever dream of being an astronaut? Or study Law for years with the intention of changing the world from within, only to end up a highly paid corporate lawyer working their asses off to maintain the status quo and safeguard the new Lexus.

Some would say it’s called growing up; but it’s not - it’s called giving up. Expensive toys will not make your kids happier, just like grown up toys don’t make us any happier.

I have fond thoughts of my first car - the one I paid £175 for. I used to carry a great big bottle of water everywhere I went in case it overheated, and I learned how to change a radiator before I could even drive properly. I drove my last car for five years and it never broke down once, but it’s the rust bucket that brings back memories.

Today is my last day at The Company. I’ve tossed in the day job and pretty much dumped the career. My next car will probably break down a lot - and I can’t wait. And if I meet you at a party, or in a bar some day, I won’t be asking you ‘What do you do?‘ I’ll be asking you ‘What do you love doing?‘

If the two answers are the same, congratulations.