Still, 3 am turns to 4 am, like that bit in Phantom Of Liberty when the fella's seeing ducks and emus and postmen walking through the bedroom, and every time he looks over at the clock, an hour has miraculously passed.

I found myself wishing I lived near a cathedral, one of the cathedrals that still batter the fuck out the bells on the hour every hour, adding some sort of grandeur to this depressing scene. Or maybe a flat just off Princes Street in Edinburgh, so I could hear the cannons being fired from the castle.

Maybe I could go investigate those winding alleys in the late-night fog, maybe even get murdered by a motherfucker with a handlebar moustache and a top hat?

What it says on the box of sleep-enhancers I end up fondling for the second time, is One A Night. Do Not Exceed Stated Dose You Junkie Bastard. Go Get A Real Habit, Would You Ever? I've already swallowed two and a half, and a handful of useless herbal offerings for variety, and now I'm poking through the leaflets and foil trying to find the other half.

Fuck knows where it's gone, so I just take another full one.

Might as well have shoved my nuts in a pint of buttermilk, for all the sleep enhancing these fuckers did.

Having slept not an ounce, but feeling slightly re-energized on account of Billy Bragg singing about "You're a dedicated follower of fascism!" and a bit of Ryan Adams talking about "Tennessee's a brother to my sister Carolina, where they're gonna bury me" I end up standing in line at Burger King with Sir Fleming, head of Mondo Guerrilla Marketing, listening to a couple Scottish bikers who had obviously just seen Star Wars Episode III.

"I have them all at home", one of them announces, "But I don't like the episodes."

He means the prequels. Who the fuck calls them "The episodes"? Who, barring this man-mountain etched in leather and steel, this motorcycle maniac who no-one would ever dream of contradicting?

"Fuck those episodes!" I shouted, just in case he thought maybe I had thoughts along the lines of "Fuck your episode talk."

Turned out Sir Fleming was attending a screening of Star Wars on this very eve, being the Thursday. He was psyched. He had the look of a man who knew he was gonna be seeing some Jedi sonsabitches get slaughtered the fuck up.

It seemed right that this Burger King meal, which I despised but ate out of dementia, be some sort of celebratory affair. This very night, he would stroll past the barrier erected for to keep Geekdom in place. Once past it, there's no going back. He's seen all there is to see of Star Wars. This is it.

As if he knew of our situation, Jim Morrison started singing The End over the in-store sound system. "This is the end / My only friend, the end / Something about fucking mothers."