Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower-block? Of course I can

explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower-block. I'm not a bloody idiot. I

can explain it because it wasn't inexplicable: it was a logical decision, the product

of proper thought. It wasn't even a very serious thought, either. I don't mean it was

whimsical - I just meant that it wasn't terribly complicated, or agonized. Put it

this way: say you were, I don't know, an assistant bank manager, in Guildford. And

you'd been thinking of emigrating, and then you were offered the job of managing a

bank in Sydney. Well, even though it's a pretty straightforward decision, you'd still

have to think for a bit, wouldn't you? You'd at least have to work out whether you

could bear to move, whether you could leave your friends and colleagues behind,

whether you could uproot your wife and kids. You might sit down with a bit of paper

and draw up a list of pros and cons. You know:

CONS - aged parents, friends, golf club.

PROS - more money, better quality of life (house with pool, barbecue, etc.), sea,

sunshine,runescape gold farming no left-wing councils banning 'Baa-Baa Black Sheep', no EEC directives

banning British sausages, etc.

It's no contest, is it? The golf club! Give me a break. Obviously your aged parents

give you pause for thought, but that's all it is - a pause, and a brief one, too.

You'd be on the phone to the travel agents within ten minutes.

Well, that was me. There simply weren't enough regrets, and lots and lots of reasons

to jump. The only things in my 'cons' list were the kids, but I couldn't imagine

Cindy letting me see them again anyway. I haven't got any aged parents, and I don't

play golf. Suicide was my Sydney. And I say that with no offence to the good people

of Sydney intended.

I told him I was going to a New Year's Eve party. I told him in October. I don't know

whether people send out invitations to New Year's Eve parties in October or not.

Probably not. (How would I know? I haven't been to one since 1984. June and Brian

across the road had one, just before they moved. And even then I only nipped in for

an hour or so, after he'd gone to sleep.) But I couldn't wait any longer. I'd been

thinking about it since May or June, and I was itching to tell him. Stupid, really.

He doesn't understand, I'm sure he doesn't. They tell me to keep talking to him, but

you can see that nothing goes in. And what a thing to be itching about anyway! It

just goes to show what I had to look forward to, doesn't it?