things move around

When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, ‘Did you sleep good?,’ I said ‘No, I made a few mistakes.’ - Steven Wright

Like love, bear-traps and the wrong company, sleep is something that you fall into. And like greatness, sleepiness is something you can be born with, achieve or have thrust upon you; in the case of koalas it’s all three. Sleep has been a source of inspiration to poets, philosophers and mad mathematicians throughout the ages - this explains why these people so often have beards. High-powered business people, on the other hand, never sleep; this is because they all live in New York.

Some people talk in their sleep. Often these people are interminably dull when awake; recent series of Big Brother have proved this conclusively. The next series will therefore consist of twelve people and a bottomless paddling-pool full of Nightol. It will be an inspiration to insomniacs everywhere.

One thing that is very important when falling asleep, is not to know you are falling asleep. A bit like making a twat of yourself at a social function, or having a revelation, if you realise you’re on the cusp of it you slip straight down a big snake back to square one. People under hypnosis at Butlins or Freshers’ Weeks, however, manage to fall asleep, have revelations and make themselves look foolish simultaneously. But these people generally don’t require a hynotist to achieve this.

Sleep can be fitful, deep, disturbed or refreshing. It has never been adequately explained and no-one knows what hallucinations it will bring. Yet if we go without it, we eventually go mad and start beating ourselves. For all these reasons and more, it is often compared to a woman.

Luckily, women don’t cause yellow gunk to appear in your eyes. Well, no women I know, anyway.