What happens when you're knackered?

Well ....... Goood Eeeeeeevening VietBlog!!!

'S bin a while, some weeks actually. Not had much inspiration for blogs recently. The news has been disastrously predictable ... Tony and Gordon Show, Iran, Iraq, Terrorism yada-yada. Yawn!

Actually been doing a lot of that recently ... yawning that is. Having just come off my first all night stint for a quite a while, I'd forgotten the peculiarly bizarre effect fatigue can have on the body. Not being 23, snorting interesting white powders, popping pills, or generally overdosing on any caffeine based substance I still managed to make it through the night and most of the way through the following day before admitting defeat and going home for a rest.

But a 30 hour stint can take its toll and it is interesting to note how many ways I found of effectively shutting off. For example, sitting in the chair half my brain would shut down, with the result that I felt I was slipping sideways. It was after a couple of vertiginous episodes like this, despite my best efforts at concentrating on the task at hand, I decided that riding a litre or so of motorbike 40 miles home might not be such a good idea. I reverted to primitive train man - still at 3 in the afternoon there's plenty of space and seats were easy to come by.

Another trick of the brain, trying to subvert my attempts to work, meant that entire minutes would disappear without my noticing them. Just gone, vapourised, vanished. Specks of my life, obliterated without trace. OK, so I was just sitting in front of a screen, so no harm done. But if this had been some critical task, what then?

Of course, when I allowed myself to shut down - on the train - I managed to lose large swathes of time, no problem. Not quite sleep, but a half consciousness. Now that is weird stuff. Not that sleep deprivation is mandated to reach this state - there appear to be a fair number of people who are permanently like this, many of them behind the wheel of a car in the mornings. But, the strange thing is the brain's ability to respond to salient input whilst ticking over - like train inspectors, proximity to home and livid green cycle suites. Near instantaneous ability to respond appropriately, yet able to return quickly to a quiescent state. That's quite a handy trick to have in one's arsenal. I think it's a trick I'll need to develop further for those tedious meetings.

And, when I was finally able to get my head on a bed. PHONE CALL!!!!! Aieee Karamba!!! What? where?!! Wow, was I confused. Whole seconds passed before I was able to re-orient myself. That, and the irrational, immediate reaction to a) fling the phone out of the window and b) find the individual responsible and encourage them towards a long term career pushing up daisies. Fortunately the homicidal stage didn't last too long, most of the people in immediate vicinity have survived without serious or life threatening injury, but that flash of anger. Interesting - as Spock would have said.

Still, awake now, moderately sane and scribbling this blog (OK, maybe that's an oxymoron) I'm good for another few hours before I'll need to crash. All this on less than 2 hour's sleep throughout - makes me think, how much sleep is really necessary, how quickly does the debt become too great and what happens when it does. (Yes I know there are books on the subject - but it's the individual response I'm really interested in)

Well, that's about it for now. It's a bit random - no social comment, no cynical dismemberment, just the story of tired bloke. Go figure.