Right. Let’s do this. Column. Go.

Oh, hi guys. Excuse the ‘tude up there in the first line. I’m having a sort out at home and I’m being a bit brusque because I am Being Efficient and that’s the tone you should have when you are being that, right? I’m wearing my hair in a bun too. Because nothing says ‘I Mean Business’ like a big knot on your head that takes ages to get out because you didn’t brush it first.

Right. Focus.

So, my hallway is currently lined with binbags, which apparently – in the interest of my not falling over the bannister and dying – I now have to go through and see what can actually be ‘thrown away’. Which bits of my collected living that I saw fit to keep a while, perhaps even forever, are now redundant.

It’s quite tough keeping your ‘I Am A Machine’ vibe going when you’re worrying about hurting the feelings of a broken coat hanger, and a festival T-shirt that didn’t even accommodate your left breast let alone the right one as well. What if they figure out they’re on the ‘Defo Chuck’ pile? Can I be responsible for that inanimate emotional fallout?

FOCUS, HASLER.

Anyway. I have a system of sorts. I think. In that the first ‘chuck pile’ doesn’t count. Does it. I mean, it doesn’t, does it. (Note: absence of question marks.) That is merely a pile of maybes lying there waiting for further scrutiny (/lengthy cross-legged musing). I will need to spend at least another five hours quadruple-checking the things I callously lobbed (/placed lovingly piece by piece) out of my Room of Woe – the box room which lives up to its descriptor, storage possibilities, and Pandoran mythology. Which items should definitely be advanced into Pile 2 – the ‘Maybe Definitely Maybes’. And even beyond, in time, after further consideration, to the ‘Absolutely Definitely Think About Throwing Away One Day’ pile.

It’s a hazardous job. I just almost frenchied the chin of my life-size cardboard Alan Partridge when a bamboo screen I had forgotten I owned fell on me at an odd angle. Alan stood awkwardly, a bit bent, as I tried and failed to move an old 50s iron that I stole from a theatre in Margate. (Or somewhere less specific. In my defence, it didn’t seem like it was being well looked after there. I am not a thief. I am a rescuer.) Anyway. Alan was a gent and moved the iron for me.

FOCUS HASLER.

I tell you what – just while I pause for tea and to write to you guys and possibly shave the dog – I’m ruddy glad we don’t have to obey health and safety regs in our own homes because my life would get shut down. I’d have men in hard-hats making big black crosses on a clipboard and shaking their heads at me while they wave in a rubbish truck to take me and my life down to the tip. (I love the tip. Have you been? There’s loads of great stuff down there. You should go.)

Pause.

I’ve been thinking. This is a big job.

I might just put it all back and start again when I’ve got more time. I want to do it justice. These inanimate objects that I am in no way attached to deserve it. Good plan, Hasler. Do it another day.

Come on, strange lampshade – come sit on a bookshelf for a bit like I know how to fix you in any way. You pretty, lovely, useless broken thing.