Morrissey Dream

Two o'clock in the morning on Saturday, and my head is a mess... I'm in a state. There have been several wasted hours of masturbation, computer porn and Facebook: and a strange e-mail from a woman I met in the library. These stalker relationships have got to stop, I think to myself, working myself up into a state of concern about Enhanced Criminal Record Bureau checks, the state of the surveillance culture, and my deepest workings exposed before a jury of unsmiling female police officers.

I climb into bed, seeking recovery for my battered senses and the comfort of oblivion. When I awake two hours later I am lying on my back in a vaguely yogic posture- both legs are resting together, the knees at right angles to the rest of me; a stretching sensation that is oddly pleasurable. The effect on my mind is dramatic: I awake from my nap feeling renewed, restored to a pristine state... with the knowledge that there are faculties that need awakening, a process of slide and atrophy that must be arrested. More than anything else, I need to sing.

I am on a boat... My father and brother are both there, and three or four couples I don't recognize. My parents have wired up a karaoke machine to curb my notorious temper, to keep me sane, to bring out the best of me in a difficult world. My song selections are drawn from a cassette or cartridge called 'The Best of Morrissey'... I remember snapping into the microphone- 'Bloody buggery!'- which draws no reaction from my father except sage-like patience... He seems to know what makes me tick, what calms me down.

I sing a song similar to (but not) 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out'. Despite being well-received by the others on board, I am unsatisfied... The next singer, however, an Irish man (on the cruise with his wife) assures me the performance has generated a good atmosphere. Everybody seems either to be having sex or drinking heavily. 'When you've been asked for a drink three times and you speak as little of the lingo as we do,' he jokes, 'you know they're drunk.'

'Oh I know,' I say, still in character. 'I could kill for a lager... die for a lager.'