Crisis? What Crisis?

I am celebrating an anniversary this week. It was exactly a year ago that I quit PAYE to go self-employed. Time to break out the party poppers and mark the first milestone in my new life, you might think?
Well no, not really. You see, I am no nearer knowing what I want to do with my life now than I was last February when I walked out of a newspaper office for the last time. All I have managed to decide is a list of things I DON'T want to do.
I abandoned hard news and mainstream journalism because.....well.....to be honest.......it abandoned me! The job I did, the job I used to love, didn't exist anymore and still doesn't. A year on I know I was exactly right to get out when I did. Just a cursory flick through ANY newspaper, a quick glance at the TV bulletins or an earful of the so-called news on the wireless will confirm to even to dullest of people that news is dead. It is no more. It has ceased to be.
They are all now obsessed with celebrity gossip, "lifestyle features", the latest from Hollywood, cutesy little pieces on lovable toddlers, appalling "you the public tell us" items of shite and, when real news is unavoidable, war "reports" packed with unsubstantiated and ludicrously speculative crap or carefully crafted army press releases, all delivered from the comfort of hotels or from highly managed media corrals. All you see or hear is reporters interviewing reporters about the one press release they have both been given, blonde fluffies giggling at comic book University of Southern California survey results and plastic, narcissistic, oily, lounge lizards pretending to know about how this country is run. Underpinning all of this is the modern reporters' golden rule - "It's not the news that is important, it is who is bringing it to you. Look at me! Look at me!!"
By going freelance I was turning gamekeeper. It is my job now to bullshit the bullshitters and get stories into the media for clients. I can't say it is something I am particularly proud of but I have done my years of stupid hours for little financial reward, all in the name of integrity. Fuck that! Time to swim with the rats and earn some dosh. The trouble is, because you live in a world of PR bullshit, the people who offer you work or say they are going to pay you are all full of shit, obviously. Consequently, they tell you that you have a contract, you cancel other work accordingly and make plans but then they renege on the "gentleman's agreement" you had. They don't even have the bollocks to tell you. They just ignore you, hoping you will go away, and when you finally track them down they bullshit about "problems" which have come up and how busy they are. What narks me most is that they should even TRY to bullshit me - ME!! I've got a fucking Masters in bullshitting! Sadly, the end result of all this is that, as my mother used to ramble, it don't butter no parsnips.
So, news is dead and freelancing is financially precarious. What to do? I have had to concede that my pole dancing days are over, not that they ever started. Catering for blind pensioners with no sense of smell and having to buy a purpose built, concrete reinforced titanium pole would prove more dodgy financially than freelancing!

I could become a bra-fitter? Then again, the ladies who shop at Contessa don't really take to assistants who dribble and pant. A marriage guidance counsellor? - on second thoughts. Becoming "The Face of L'Oreal" appeals but I think I would have more chance becoming "The Arse of Andrex"! I could always just get any old job, driving a truck, sweeping the roads or stacking shelves at Tesco's, but somehow I don't think that would satisfy. Oh, I don't know.
So, to recap, I am 46, about to get divorced, cash strapped, not enjoying my work, in search of something else, clueless about what to do and yet with a burning desire to do SOMETHING, to leave my mark, to change the world and live life to the full. I have this irrational feeling that I should have climbed Everest by now, even though I am scared of heights. I am chewed up by the fact that I did not discover penicillin, though God knows I've used it! I should be fighting lions in Africa, I should be walking on the moon, no, make that Mars, I should be rowing the Atlantic, I should be a wild west hero, I should be.............I should be............I should be certified, I think.
It is called "a midlife crisis", I believe. Actually, that was a phrase dreamt up by women out of spite because biology decreed that they should almost all become "yampy" over the age of 35. To me, men in a midlife crisis are those types who go out and buy a massive motorbike and new leathers and then cruise around with their other fat, businesmen chums, pretending they are in Easy Rider. If they don't do that they buy a toupe, dress in ridiculously tight fashions designed for the yoof of the nation and then hang around bars trying to pick up 18-year-old Waynetta-types. Thankfully, I am neither of those types. Still, midlife crisis IS the nearest I can come to describing my current situation.
Well, the midlife crisis can, in future, be the sole preserve of Granthamites. Or can it? You know, I can't really decide.