I have been living with my alter ego for some time now. For as long as I can remember, in fact. Whether or not his memory is the same, in that regard, I am not in a position to say.

As is the case with most couples our relationship has not always reflected an image of calm waters or smooth sailing. It has not been all beer and skittles, in other words …. to put it into an appropriately colloquial parlance. We have had our differences. He has always been a bit stitched up, from my perspective. And from his I suppose I have always appeared to be a little bit irresponsible. That is not an accusation that I deny. I don’t shy away from it. I take a certain degree of pride in it, in fact.

But we have, like most couples, through compromise, managed to sort all that out.

Until now.

Have you noticed? He has not only become humourless, negative and mind numbingly boring of late but, at the same time, increasingly domineering. Somehow he pushes his views into my agendas and, before I know it, I find myself expressing his carefully thought out opinions rather than my own, rather more instinctive ones.

And he is obsessed with work. “Why???” I ask him, on an almost daily basis, “are we doing this? Wouldn’t you just like to find a place in the sun and have a beer?” But he won’t listen. And, because we are joined at the hip, I find myself dragged all over the planet on some sort of weird quest that, as far as I can tell, produces nothing other than a permanent case of jet-lag.

He has begun to age at an alarming rate. His movements are slow and deliberate. He’s tired all the time yet he never seems to sleep. And, he is getting fat. He was never a good looking man, but at least he kept himself in some sort of shape. But look at him now. His self indulgence can no longer be concealed by his belt and he has the sort of breasts that, long ago, infiltrated his wet dreams as a teenager. In size, anyway.

He uses phrases like “back in my day”. His favourite colour never changes. He won’t drink the milk after it’s use-by date.

He falls asleep in front of the football. He snores (OK – I do that too. But, somehow, it is different) and he wakes up cranky and, with every day, increasingly suspicious of what lies ahead.

God. How I have grown to despise him.

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I am reporting this to you, friends, because you may have taken note of my lack of communication of late. Or you may not have (his words, not mine).

So the broadcast has been temporarily suspended due to philosophical differences between key editorial staff. Transmission will continue as soon as mutually agreeable terms are established to resolve said differences.

Or until the fucker gets out of my head.