NEW START
New year. New job. New life?

Work has been a huge shock to my sedentary system. After three months off, my body and I were becoming accustomed to neverending days of nothingness. Now I'm up at the crack and don't get home till it's closed again.

And as I dither over whether I ought to watch the end of Newsnight or start reading the biography of Marco Pantani, now is probably as good a time as any to take stock.

So what have I learned about turning 30 and surviving it?

1) Don't fall in love with your best friend. If you must, don't tell her. And if you do, don't bother blubbing like a Norwegian whaler who's forgotten his Neutrogena.

2) Don't stay in a dead-end job longer than is necessary. And if you do, try not to play a pivotal role in getting an unknown Congolese IT man on the News, and then watch in horror as his career as a novelty celebrity takes off and his appearances on TV multiply while yours become a distant memory.

3) Don't follow up a five-year old fantasy and expect the reality to match. And if you do, do it properly. Don't be lulled into thinking that, despite the distance, the time, the boyfriend of three years, and the 48 hour time limit, you're going to make her fall in love with you.

4) Don't look at years gone by with rose-tinted glasses. They weren't that great. They were just years you'd lived in a particular time, in a particular place, and perhaps with a particular person.

5) Don't write a blog that no-one reads, and even less people bother posting on. If it's for catharsis, then write a diary. Some things are best kept between you and your cluttered mind.

BED TROUBLE
I show my bed to most people who come to my home. I have no wish for (most of) them to hop in. I'm just proud of my bed. I gush about its Italian leather frame. And I marvel about its hydraulics which allow the slats and the mattress to lift up, revealing acres of storage space below.

But last night, my bed precipitated a nightmare. Hoisting up the mattress to allow me to pick the next day's shirt, I heard a clunking noise. After several failed attempts at shutting the contraption, I noticed a metal plate had escaped from its moorings. It now hung limply from the side of the bed.

I scrambled into action. Drafted in my allan-key. And tried - and repeatedly failed - to fix the offending bed-plate. I gave up. I mulled the sofa as that evening's companion. But sleeping in a v-shape is not my favourite. So I dragged my mattress into my living room and slept on the floor.

My bed still lies in tatters next door. I don't even have the consolation of a night's heavy humping for my woes (though I did have a fumble or three with a frizzy-haired musician seven years my senior, but more on that another time).