I’m going to Singapore tomorrow, on holiday. I’ll be there for a little over a week, seeing friends and drinking aloe vera juice from vending machines. If you’re there as well and fancy some food or a coffee, drop me a line!

…dear boy, events. Lying about the future into the tannoy of the Arnolfini; running around Bristol chasing a giant ball around an infinite pitch (and making my debut as a commentator for Korean Lazer Ball); watching Quantic’s new film and seeing him trainspot records afterwards; meeting lots of local authority people who were really keen to think about the future; sorting out my dissertation and getting started finally. Lots of other things.

Right now I’ve just booked a place in the airport car park (am off to the coast near Málaga for a few days) and I’m transferring Tito Paris to my phone for the flight. One bid for something interesting to get off in the morning, and I’m done for this week. And when I get back I should talk about some of these things in a bit more detail.

I’ll probably start with the Ghosts of Birthdays Present, though. If you’re in Bristol over the next couple of weeks and fancy helping out some of those marooned in the hereafter, let me know in the comments.

It’s often assumed that a time-traveller would be uniquely placed to profit from their knowledge of events, things that to them were historical but to their new contemporaries would be yet to occur, investing in little-known technologies that were destined for greatness, or remaining aloof from ill-fated fashions. But what about the other qualities one needs to do well? What about character, or luck?

A man sits at a corner table in the company of nothing but his thoughts and a third gin: his downcast eyes are looking beyond the tabletop and his lips twitch as he rehearses the choices that led him to his present position. Arriving in what was to him then history, he found himself more informed than his peers on almost every area of human endeavour: paralysed by the choices available to him, he invested his efforts in a reckless and haphazard manner, investing money in this new technology, travelling to that soon-to-be-pivotal region of the world, advising influential individuals to take advantage of the other recent development. Spreading his resources so broadly prevented him nurturing any one of his enterprises as they deserved, and soon he became aware of his reputation as a dilletante and shyster, a diverting accquaintance with an uncanny knack of guessing how things might fall out, but not one you would wish to have as a partner. Now you see him desparate and confused, at a loss to explain how he has squandered the best possible advantage a man might want in the world.

(It doesn’t end badly for our friend, by the way: he discovers that relinquishing the idea that he has a special advantage allows him to behave in a calmer and more trustworthy way, and by the end of his life he sometimes smiles to think that the distinction he is most proud of is no longer his time-traveller status but his champion carrot cake).

Knowing things that other people don’t yet is all very well, but it wouldn’t do on its own: you’d still need something like character to succeed, and that’s timeless.

says someone in Underworld, and, I forget who, maybe the Italian who runs, this is usually true but for this time, I don´t usually read novels but I read this one and also An Equal Music, which made me want to swim back to England and pick up my violin and try the first eight bars of the Kreutzer again, like I could properly play them this time, despite the time spent doing things other than playing, and both of them together along with the change of scenery and the sea and the way the landscape seems to be more in three dimensions here, what with the angles of the rock and the textures of the scrubland and the way the pine trees bend in the path of winds with names, both of them made me think much more than I have been recently about what´s really important in the world. Language and memory and the ways we build ourselves.

Back next week. See you then.

Having a brilliant time out of the office, left in rather a hurry and left more undone than I’d like, but can feel my shoulders going down more each day and am beginning to realise that living your whole life for work is stupid. Have been paintballing in Norfolk, walking on the Gower and am stopping off in Leighton to see folks before going off to Singapore for a couple of weeks tomorrow. See you next week if you’re there, in April if you’re not, and I hope you all have as nice a time as I intend to.