Running on empty

In general, I think I'm a fairly bright spark. But I will concede that, every now and then, I am an unadulterated idiot. Sometimes, for example, I will find myself holding a carton of orange juice at an angle at which it is certain that my glass will fill extremely quickly and then overflow. 'Readjust the angle you nightmare,' I whisper to myself quickly, 'or you'll spill it everywhere.' But for some reason, I don't. I battle against all the evidence, perhaps convinced that I will beat the odds. It's moronic but I've had moments of stupidity like these all my life.

After an emotionally draining week, last Sunday night I was exhausted. I clambered into bed around 10pm and shuffled down under the duvet, revelling in the high thread-count and oozing with excitement about my early night. Casually, I flicked on the TV for thirty minutes' leisurely viewing pre-sleep. Yet all-too-predictably, thirty minutes turned into sixty, and before I knew what was happening, I was watching Paycheck, a film starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman that was not due to finish until after 1am. From the outset, it was abundantly clear that the movie would be terrible – even the title’s spelling was enough to irritate this British pedant intensely. But I became gripped by the absurdity of the plot; it seemed impossible that anything so bad could actually have been funded, distributed and aired in cinemas. And despite the screams of my eyelids and the panicked moans of my brain, desperate not to start the new week in a state of excruciating tiredness, I continued to watch, completely unable to tear myself away. Like the orange juice pouring problem, I knew with certainty that I was doing something a) stupid and b) regrettable, but I was powerless to resist.

This happened last year when I was sucked into watching As Good As It Gets - and, to be fair to myself, I didn't make the same mistake again for a long time. But sadly, the lesson does not stay learned for months every time. Last night, just four days after the Paycheck lunacy, I learned the lesson again. At around 11pm, I was up in my lair with not much to do, deliciously sleepy and with no reason not to hit the hay, when I opened up a new online cataloguing service that allows users to register, review and compare all the books they've ever read. Instantly, I knew this was an error - and sure enough, ninety minutes later, weak, aching and almost hallucinating, I was still entering banal self-help books into the system.

Today has been one of the busiest days I’ve had at work and I’ve spent the entire thing bemoaning the geek portion of my brain, the segment that would rather type the names of all the books I’ve ever read into a little box on my screen for the ostensible benefit of no-one rather than sleep.

Tonight I’m off to watch the incredible Tony Benn share some pearls of wisdom with an audience at the Bloomsbury Theatre – I have been excited about this for some time but am now worried that my head will loll noticeably at a crucial point. Combined with the amazing and fascinating book club I went to on Tuesday and with the number of things I’ve got whirring round my brain at the moment, from paint colours to spreadsheets to half marathon training schedules to taxi bookings, I wouldn’t blame it if it packed up altogether. Time for a holiday methinks. Or a big glass of white wine. Bring on the weekend.