Spent Father’s Day at the Vineyard Hotel, The Square restaurant had a special on and I thought it prudent to get outside of the city’s embrace given its circumference to everything relating to the World Cup.

The Vineyard is lovely, I always think that I should spend more time there but it’s just not a routine habit that I have been able to bed down. My parents, go often for tea and to greet a dear family friend who know works at the Hotel making sure that their debits and credits balance. So it was an obvious choice for Father’s Day.

But there is just no escaping the football though, during our lunch it became apparent that the Protuguese team were staying at the hotel. I saw Ronaldo and the frenzy that his presence tends to cause amongst teenage girls and their respective mothers. Some of the players signed scarves and jerseys and whatever that was thrown their way. It was nice to see them taking a few minutes out, to make it special for their fans, to pose for photographs and to get into the spirit.

When our meal was over I got up with my aunt who wanted to go for a cigarette and I accompanied her. We were away for about ten minutes talking about some of the games and the fever which she assured me has even spread to sleepy surburbia. On our return my mother proclaims, ‘you missed all the excitement,’ and shows me a picture of my father and Carlos Queiroz taken a few minutes ago.

Of course the next day at the UFO we got to see Portugal score a magnificent seven, now I am not saying it was the advice that I told my father to pass onto Carlos but maybe at half time he remembered something that was repeated to him late Sunday afternoon and the rest is history.

So? Who could have predicted it, we tried to escape the football but it continues to follow us wherever we go, and it’s wonderful. This World Cup is leaving a collage of memories and fantastical imprints which we will treasure always irrespective of the gender or generation – the Beautiful game how beautiful you are up close and personal.

Without a doubt May is by far the most trying month of my year and while one could seek scientific evidence for this I can’t be bothered it’s a personal axiomic truth and therein lies my acceptance, yes like not sleeping very well when the moon is full.

May hasn’t disappointed, it’s got me going from pillar to post while toying with all of the aspects of my life and thereby making sure that I abruptly move away from my comfort zone which is the size of a postage stamp with no options – conform and reform – and eventually I just get on with it.

My work dominates my thoughts, I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating that is, how I walk around a supermarket buying bananas and suddenly I am thinking about systems integration or I am having a drink and the conversation turns to subtitled movies and I am thinking about recording the desktop and the storylines that will form the basis of training materials, work has become pervasive and penetrating and it has knocked my balance.

And it’s at these moments, when everything that is beautiful suddenly becomes lopsided that I am forced to deal with myself and I think about that lyric: ‘ I was dark, then I was light, now I am dark again.’

It’s combustible and just before it catches a flame, I am reminded that it is just May and everything is taken down a notch or two because I’ve been here before and I know that I just have to set out my stall to get through it and maybe even enjoy the odd moment.

Like at six am on Thursday morning when someone sends me a text message and I leave my hotel room and within 15 minutes I’m on the Johannesburg streets running in the thin morning air. Rosebank is magical in the morning, the conversation is good and I remember the last time that I was in Fourth Street but everything is vague. Men remember sports scores, they remember the body parts of pretty women and the cars of their dreams, I remember birthdays, stupid things that I inappropriately said and my bank balance but everything else is generally a blur even pretty girls disappear from my memory’s myopic view. That run was a high point, a day later I am in the airport parking lot, I lost my ticket and then in the rush to find it I discovered that I have just lost a credit car.

It’s May my little dismay.

There have been other instances but I am not going to intellectualise the debits don’t exceed the credits and according to Telkom I am now called Mr Roben Golging, I have always used an alias for my music compilations but 302 is a far sight from the jing that is Golding that person that I have now become much to the amusement of some of the people who I work with and who will phone asking if they’ve got through to Robin Goldging, it’s puerile but it’s kinda funny.

It’s May.

I found some great music, the new Caribou album will be in the top ten albums of the year, I have also rediscovered Charles Webster but I have lost my Surfer Rosa (by the Pixies) cd, I have an idea of where it went but as my mother would say, ‘you are where you are meant to be’ so I suspect that it is the same for that cd. And I have found some great TV too, White Collar, is slick and suave and Justified is tough and rugged, as cool as a Clint Eastwood western, those are my tips for when there is no Gossip Girl on the television which I will one day put on the sound and the pretty girls will have a voice, I think I am a little scared to do that because I may be drawn in (and what of my credibility, yes that funny thing), I once put the sound up on a Verimark infomercial and that was the end.

It’s mid month, it’s May, the sun is shining and the prettiest girl in the office is wearing grey but she wears it well and it illuminates the day.

Over the last few years I have complied: ‘The most important album of the year.’ I borrowed the idea from Chet Baker who did a one of theses babies in ’64/65. I think I’ve got four or five now, it’s bad when you can’t remember the size of your own stash but such is modern living and my fading memory.

This year my most important album is dedicated to TLS and that’s not the Times Lit Supp but Tina Louise, who informs me that I know her for 29 years (impossible as I’m only 28). This represents the end of our communications embargo which has foolishly existed for far too long and for which I unfortunately am to blame (I’m not always that goodie flash shoes that you believe that I am) and the beginning of a new Trip, when you are old enough you’ll understand.

So here you are – the most important album of 2010.
1. Scott Walker – The perfect opener and I mean perfect.
2. Johnny Angel – The Carpenters – I think I was depressed because I generally only listen to the wonderful world of the Carpenters when I’m in that state and I remember the moment. I was thinking the beginning of a love affair except that I was rooted to the carpet, alone…nirvana.
3. Listen to me – Jazzanova sampled the opening.
4. Mystery man – tell me about your favourite line in this song and I’m sure we’ll agree it’s got something to do with whisky lips.
5. La comedie – for my favourite, little on the beat writer, who keeps me distracted and unconsciously infatuated with her and those beatnik scribbles.
6. Os mutantes – brilliant! Brilliant!!
7. Come on over to my house – that’s why I was depressed but this is fun, charming and very good.
8. Pink balloon – you know you are on a trip when this tongue in cheek…’would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon’ reinterpretation of sorts gets you nodding.
9. Connie – does my favourite song on this selection. Such a good song.
10. I opted out of the Japan and Hotchip tracks that I had on two previous versions for this Gary Numan classic
11. Classic stuff from Phil and Giorgio
12. The Roots bring the nod factor.
13. Then Chic will keep you dancing
14. & 15. And it goes continental to the point that I’m thinking about how I’d like to be Paris again and doing that dance of connection the tango with someone I’m…yes you know that part
16. Kathleen was a late insert but I’m a big Townes admirer.
17. Pray for rain – I admit that it’s the only song that I like on the new massive attack and it’s perfect right here.
18. Pizzicato 5 – do number #5 – they’ve got a certain quality don’t they
19. Finally a little reprise to end it all off.

I not sure if it’s melancholy or if it’s fatigue, it could be both, there is always a multiple choice selection, “All of the above,” I only selected that option when it said, “None of the above,” because that was far trickier of the examiner, the MCQ of my daily existence is far from simple so perhaps all of the above is appropriate.

My head is filled with sweet nostalgia and it’s not even seven and the cars are already sweeping by the flat, Beach Road drivers are confusing an early Autumn evening with the final practice session of the Monaco Grand Prix, the limit is 50 km/h but nobody is living slowly tonight except one person on the 302 balcony.

Pavement are my entertainment, Steve Malkmus is on top form he sings: “I’ve got style miles and miles and it’s wasting…” I just nod in agreement that man said it first in 1992 on the Water Domestic Ep and it’s still relevant this evening. Music is always relevant, it never fails to impact me, it works faster than cheap drugs and stays in my system longer than rehab worthy addictions that I promise to give up every New Year or when the clock strikes one.

My latest favourite jogging tune by Yatch, All we ever wanted…’protect your eyes be careful with the downloading…protect your eyes!’