My 36th birthday. Up at 6am again, so the day has hope. No appointments today. I can pretty much do what I like, as long as it doesn’t cost very much. Perhaps a mooch around town, and then to the London Library. Somewhere where quietness has been subscribed to. I need to have a serious think about things, so it helps to go where the serious thinkers go.

Looking at the number 36 written down, thoughts of what I want to do with the rest of my life spring up. There was a George Melly documentary on TV the other week, screened in memoriam. He was interviewed during his last years, and said there were many things he wished he’d done: been more of a poet, painter, novelist, alongside all the singing, memoir writing, journalism and generally living large.

‘But I’ve never done anything I didn’t want to do,’ he said, uttering the phrase like a credo.

Now, civilisation was pretty much built on a good deal of people doing things they didn’t want to do, throughout history. As I write, all over London people are off to jobs they’d rather not do, indeed might hate with a passion. But they are jobs they can do, which need to be done (one hopes) and which pay the bills.

That’s fine for those who can adapt easily to the World Of Work. But for those of us who are shaped slightly wrongly for much of the world’s fixed slots, it’s not so easy to do. If I’ve learned anything after thirty-six summers, it’s that there’s no point in working purely for money if you hate what you’re doing. Apart from anything else, hating a job means in my case that I won’t do a good job, so I’ll soon be sacked, and then it’s been a waste of time all round.

Some birthday messages to myself. Maybe to others, too.

You should probably spend less time on the Internet. If you just keep your diary updated, and stick to one place on the Web, people will know you’re still alive and are more or less okay, and that’s usually all they need. You have enough real friends in real life, and should spend more time consolidating these friendships. Friendship is sacred, if it’s truly meant.

Don’t dwell on those who find you ‘interesting’ from afar, or those in whom you’ve awoken some spark of remote obsession. All unsolicited attention flatters, but its active cultivation will do no favours to admirer and subject alike. Instead, spend more time on those who truly know you and love you.

Concentrate on learning to properly swim in one social pool, rather than paddling in the shallow end of so many. This one is going to be tricky at first, but stick with it.

At 36, you’re meant to more or less know where your abilities lie. You’re told – by people you don’t really know – that you can write well. Well, write. Write more. Write better. Read up on technique. Practice. Maybe take a course. Write stories. Screenplays. Lyrics for others. Don’t get to your grave having only written about what other people have done, reviewing other people’s music, books and films. Not if you know you want to do your own. So make your own. Make many. Do it. Work at it. Become faster. Get feedback. Improve.

Last night: I watch the film Beyond Therapy. It’s a late 80s comedy directed by Robert Altman, adapted from a stage play. Altman is clearly not best suited to the material, because the film really doesn’t work. It’s certainly not worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as Short Cuts. Jeff Goldblum plays a bisexual trying to have it both ways. He lives with Christopher Guest (whose convincingly swishy performance is close to the one he does in the fantastic Waiting For Guffman), but he also wants to date the lady from Airplane. And everyone’s seeing therapists.

Jeff Goldblum does his usual thing, speaking… as if… he hasn’t… had much… sleep… the night… before. And the dialogue overlaps in that chatty Altman way. But the scripted jokes become lost and the audience is left high and dry.

I was sitting there thinking I could fix the script myself, or even fix the direction. Not daring to suggest I could outdo Robert Altman, but I could see which bits were not working, and was thinking what could be changed, given it’s an adapted play. Any filmic tendencies need to be quietened down, so the words and the performances can engage more directly.

But the other sides of directing tend to put me off: the long hours, the painstaking repetition, and the diplomatic nature; having to be overly nice to so many people even in the most stressful of circumstances. I wouldn’t have the nerve to be a tyrant, a la Von Trier. I actually rather like actors. Still, that’s one thing on the big To Do list.

An over-used phrase to say when having watched a bad movie is ‘that was ninety minutes of my life I’ll never get back.’ But in the case of films like Beyond Therapy, which left me thinking how I could fix the thing, it was ninety minutes well spent.

‘I would have preferred the film to have done this’, some critics say. So make your own film, I say.

***

Saturday evening: to a fun garden party at the home of Jen C and Alex & Bill M, in Highgate. Home-made cupcakes, marshmallow-flavoured Rice Krispie cakes, a raffle with prizes, and games of badminton on the lawn. I chat to Senay S for the first time in years; great to see her again. Actually it’s a Baxendale reunion, with Tim B and Alex M all there.

I mention to American Emily that I’ve applied for that Time Out job.

‘So have I!’ she replies. And we imagine we probably know a few other applicants somewhere along the line.

‘Hope you get it.’

‘No, I hope YOU get it.’

I don’t envy whoever has to sort through the applicants. Must be hundreds.

We talk about the ‘things to improve about Time Out‘ blurb which the advert asked for, and Emily thinks the Guardian Guide has stolen much of Time Out‘s potential audience. The Guide is a cute little mini-supplement packaged with the newspaper’s Saturday edition, containing arts reviews and a decent smattering of local listings. It’s handy in size, and manages to be vaguely fizzy and in touch without feeling too trendy. And it steers clear of getting into the ‘praise one thing for not being another’ tone which in some quarters is mistaken for ‘lively’.

Right. Off into town I go.