Wrong side of the bed today. I’m going about my business and the world seems abysmal – hypocrisy and falsehood rule, and every encounter seems fraught with spiky hostility, with misery. The soundtrack to Magnolia is running in my head, that fiercely beautiful dirge.

The headlines on the tabloids speak of the “Baghdad Bounce” – Blair’s the Comeback Kid, the polls are looking good for him. Britain is an alien land to me again. I feel about this government the same way I did about Margaret Thatcher’s. I could not move here as long as she was still in charge, and I do not think I can live in Blair’s Britain much longer. There is a collective blindness here – the emperor has no clothes. The arrogance, the conscious determination to ignore history’s lessons, the absence of integrity, the obscenity that a passionate self-sacrificial (and therefore self-justifying) appeal for war could ever be seen as a moral argument. The lies, the self-delusion, the curious way that this seemingly rational country permits its leaders to live in a bubble and go mad with power to make decisions that are contrary to what its people actually want, to surround themselves with sycophantic courtiers to anaesthetise them while democratic principles are surgically removed. And the British people seem willing to forgive him his folly. Putin calls his bluff and he’s shocked. Reality stings. Expect anti-Russian bile to hit the tabloids soon.

Northern Ireland is slipping back into sour game-playing, everyone waiting for the other side to change, to move, to surrender, that sickness, that retreating into immaturity. Is it any wonder when “parents” Tony and Bertie are behaving like children in the schoolyard, all kowtowing to George and his gang? Not a principle in sight.

Walking to the tube this morning, past the emaciated working girls standing by the post office, the raddled crack addicts selling their heaven with threat pulsing through their veins. It’s Kings Cross. That makes a difference? Why? Geography? Tolerance? Tradition? Fuck knows. It’s here every day, every hour. Down three levels into the grimy station, crowds flowing stream-like down man-made courses.

In the middle of the hall, a man stops. He slowly reaches down with one hand and uses a can of lager as a stilt. He’s crumbling. A knee goes first, to the ground. He still stares forward, his free hand waves gently in front of him. His other knee touches the tiles now, and he slides out onto his side. He has half a smile on his face, but he’s not really present. People hurry past ignoring him. A staff member saunters by and doesn’t notice the man on the ground. I stop him and say that someone’s collapsing. He looks over and irritation flashes across his face. More work for him.

Every single day, in Ireland, a man kills himself. It’s the leading cause of death in young Irish men. 70% of men who kill themselves, are known to have experienced depression – it’s hard to establish what the rest were feeling, but it’s not likely to have been much different. One in five people get to suffer from depression, but most of them fail to recognise it, or get help for it. It’s a difficult thing, this life. Hard to get a grasp of it, squeeze out its essence. Hard to get conscious, to think from a place that is balanced. It changes every day, like the weather. I don’t see the life I know anywhere in the media.

We see what we look for, this much I know.

I read on the tube that an octopus in an aquarium died of a heart attack because some imbeciles took flash photographs of him, ignoring the sign that says “No Flash Photography”. I hate people so much sometimes. I hate ignorance.

The evening, after work. I’m less angry. A man in his fifties with wild grey hair and gardener’s hands stands in the supermarket aisle. He’s facing the shelves full of men’s shaving paraphernalia. He has two different brands of shaving cream or gel in his hands, and he’s staring at them. A reverent gaze, as a paleontologist might hold a couple of bones. As I pass him, he asks in a polite voice: “Excuse me, I wonder could you help me?”

I have the sort of face that beggars like. I get asked, if I’m in town, at least once, more often twice a day for something. I’ve decided the best way to react is simply to look people straight in the eye and shake my head, smile ruefully, and walk very quickly away. If you speak, you’re a goner. You’ll engage with a guilt-tripping maestro and you’ll always come off worse. The worst ones are those who have mastered the martyred, putting-on-a-brave-face, intensely cheer-filled “have a nice day anyway” retort – a nasty little weapon. Such words can pierce the heart, like shrapnel from cluster bombs that the British and American people have left in fields for Iraqis to walk on. It’s war out there, I tell you, war.

But this guy is different. He is asking with the tone of someone who has never asked a question like this before.

“Yes,” I say. I stand beside him. He looks at the two canisters. I look at the two canisters.

I read recently how friendships can be made in India between men. You go up to someone and stand beside him. You don’t have to do or say anything. Just watch the world go by together. If he moves on, he has said “no” and is not interested. If he stays, he’s enjoying your company, and you could be friends for life. It’s subtle. It’s like music. There are 96 words for love in Sanskrit.

But I’m not in India. I’m in a supermarket in central London. The staff may have Indian features, and Philippino, and Malaysian, but the culture is English. Don’t talk to strangers, don’t smile with your eyes. Get on with your grey day. God, it’s a punishing city, it pisses on the last embers of warmth in your heart if you let it.

Gillette foam or gel? “I’ve never used any of these things before. They say this is what I’ve got to get. I’ve always used a brush before, and soap, you know?” Yes, I know. “But now I’ve to get one of these.”

We survey the ranks of painted aluminium containers, with their plastic tops. “What do I do?” he asks.

I explain about aerosols and squeezing a little bit into the palm of your hand. “And then what?” he asks. “Then you rub it on your face,” I say. “If you’re used to the sort of suds that come from a brush, then try the gel, it’s more like soap – the foam goes a bit frothy and dry”. “Oh. OK. Thanks,” he says, and I go off. Ten minutes later as I go past the aisle again to get to the checkout, he’s still there, reading the label on a can. You’ve got to get these things right.

I get home, eat, and write this. A spam e-mail arrives with the subject line “Monster cocks tearing girls”. It’s in my mind before I can delete it.

I want to shout again. And do.