Bohemian Rhapsody

This isn't the blog I want to write tonight. That blog is long and complex and probably just a little mind-blowing.

Maybe tomorrow.

For now, I'm going to witter on about something, largely because I can.

When friends from entirely unconnected areas of your life end up giving you the same idea, you know it's time to go do a thing.

Today, we did a thing. We went to Cardiff this morning (It's Saturday, goddmmit, where did you expect me to be, there's a corner of Starbucks with my name on it!), and went for lunch at an Italian resaurant.

Yep, that was it. That was the thing. The restuarant's called La Boheme, and I've had reviews of it from friends in entirely separate corners of my life. So today - on the hottest day of the year so far - we tracked it down and ate there.

Meh...

Wasn't bad, but I wouldn't kill ya for it - which as most of you know, is really saying something, cos from time to time I'd kill each and every one of you  with my bare hands for a guilt-free chocolate cake...

I think d's review sums it up: "I do feel like I'm in a real Italian place, like I'm in Italy, Italy...I'm just not entirely sure it's worth the air fare..."

To be honest though, today will go down in the history of my happiness for reasons entirely unconnected with the meal at La Boheme (including a slightly over-gelatinous panna cotta, so nehh!).

I went to a bank today.

That's rarely an experience that makes me happy, so today was a bit of a red letter day.

D'you know how you start a business these days? You go and see a business banker (I'm rather fortunate in that I used to spend Saturday nights with mine when we were teenagers, as parts of the same crowd. She's also that weirdest of phenomena - a banker with a sense of humour. Instead of one of those "Happy to help" badges they make people wear these days, hers simply has "Caffeine Addict:" and her name on it. I can respect that in a banker...). You ask them about funding and they go "Hmm...well these days, no-one gets an overdraft to start a business with..." (cos gods forbid we should be irresponsible and reckless with money, I'm guessing...) "...but what we can do is give you a business credit card, to make purchases on..."

So you get one of those, and then you start buying all the stuff you need to set up your business. And then over time, if you do it right, you get to put money towards paying off the balance of that credit card.

Well...I went to a bank today, and I cleared that credit card. My business exists now. In the black. In the world of proper, legitimate, technically profit-making concerns.

Can't really tell you how this makes me feel...both my fathers ran their own businesses (it's a bit of a perversion that I ended up being a Socialist, really). My nature-dad ran his into the ground like a paper plane, and there was always the fear when I started Jefferson Franklin that "if you set it up, no-one will give a toss..." - though admittedly, being reliably sober gave me an enormous head start on him. My nurture-dad ran his business to a quite impressive level of success - by which I mean he could pay off his mortgage early and so on. Fees like a bit of a hat-tip to him and what he taught me that today has happened. Even if I were to close it down tomorrow, it now feels like I can add "Entrepreneur" somewhere on my CV.

Of course, I also saw how back-breakingly hard my nurture-dad worked to make his business a success. My business, fortunately, involves abbbbbsolutely no heavy lifting whatsoever, but it has involved wuite a lot of time that otherwise belonged to d and I, or indeed belonged to the effort of Disappearing. That too, I learned from him.

And of course I'm not going to close it down tomorrow. Quite apart from anything else, there are editors in the middle of edits (including me). We've also now got work booked through the end of October, so it's likely the business will at least see out the end of 2013.

What happens in 2014? I don't know yet...though I do have Plans...
What happens to the Disappearing Man? Frankly, he gets a smack upside the head. This week, from Monday, discipline, thy name be Tony - morning walk as per usual, at least one hour on the bike or in the gym, sensible eating. Having crossed the business Rubicon, it's time to hop back across the Disappearing Rubicon and get the hell on with things.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get on - edits to do!