The warm weather continues apace round these parts; yes, I know, what we call a "heatwave" is regarded with derision in most other places around the globe, but – like the winter weather – we've not got the infrastructure nor the building design to cope with it. No shops in my little town have air-con, the cafe has one ceiling fan which wobbles alarmingly, and the only place doing good business, apparently, is the mini-supermarket's frozen pizza section. They're not selling anything, just having a lot of people stick their heads in it.

There are certain side-effects to this weather system. One is that my TV signal has gone even more on the fritz than usual, to the point where I can't even watch Balamory on CBeebies. Another is that my hunger to do things is as flat as a pancake that's been run over by a steamroller and laid out on an ironing board in Cambridgeshire.

This, for once, not only applies to my libido, but generally. It's very easy for me to stay in my "comfort zone" at such times, and spend my non-working time between laptop and bed-with-good-book because my lower floor is the coolest place in Suffolk, pizza freezers excepted.

I was hoping Henry Vee would provide the catalyst to the summer, as the big thing to be worked on and to open up new avenues for fun and recreation. Now that's gone tits-up I need to find something else in which to push myself…

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G. suggested the other day that I take up "freelance writing" as a side job. I rolled my eyes. Several other people have echoed her sentiment. I'm still rolling my eyes.

It's not that I'm too modest about my abilities, but it's that I'm dubious of either my durability or my marketability.

First, you have to consider that now we have El Interwebz, there's no shortage of people who can actually write. Everyone has a blog now to show off their talent. Even if 50% of them are illiterate, another 20% of them are in the what Steph once coined as the "I ate a piece of toast" category, a further 10% of them are just links to YouTube videos everyone's already seen, and yet another further 10% are IT-geekdom; that still leaves millions of potential writers in the pool out there. The Charlie Brooker way to stardom – write an interesting site/blog, hope it gets noticed by someone big, then work your way up – seems a very remote possibility, even for someone with his particularly choice turn of phrase.

So, to get noticed, you probably have to specialize; you have to offer either your expertise or your particular viewpoint from your job or career [think Belle de Jour or NightJack] .

I don't think "Confessions Of A NightShift Residential Social Worker" would have quite the same pull as the above professions, and although mental health is the one area in which I could write with some expertise, I don't think I have the breadth of knowledge to become someone's Mental Health Expert Writer, and I'm not sure I could write it in a way that would be entertaining and good to read. Once you've got Napoleon Syndrome gags out of the way, there's little that's at all funny to be found in mental health*.

The other two main subjects covered in this blog – politics and media/culture – are very well covered elsewhere by people much more plugged in to what's going on. I can offer no political insight, just opinions and rants. They're much more fun to write than read.

As for popular culture; Max's latest piece, for example is a brilliant dissection of "musical women", far better than anything I could do on any form of music. Telly review blogs are two-a-penny – one is even called Custard.tv [not sure who got the name first].

Perhaps the only area I'd want to do something particular in is Gender and Sexuality, as a serious blog rather than as a tranny show-off, but encompassing my particular experience in these issues as well as wider political developments. Though I'm very wary of putting my name up in any publication against my rather-liberal thoughts in these areas; now we know that the press, even the bit of it that's supposed to be more sensible and astute, aren't afraid of outing prominent bloggers…

My main objection to the idea of freelance writing, though, is that what is an enjoyable hobby – making my friends giggle, think or just go "aaaaah" at pictures of puffins occasionally – is enjoyable because it's done under no pressure, it doesn't have to meet deadlines, it has fairly instant feedback, it doesn't get subbed to death, and I can go completely off topic and put in a picture of Zeinab Badawi in for no reason and nobody will complain.

[Except probably Ms. Badawi herself.]

Unless and until someone will pay me to write in a way which meets those conditions, I will continue to be your humble amateur blogger on this site, noticed only by a select few gorgeous people. And I like it that way.

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* There's lots of very unfunny mental health humour, though, perpetuated by people with little or no experience of it. I remember an edition of Feedback in which David Baddiel was taken to task for stereotype mad people jokes: his response was "there's no subject which is beyond humour." Mr Baddiel was later seen in "Who Do You Think You Are?", trudging round a Nazi concentration camp that a grandparent may have died in. Mind if we crack a few jokes about that, David?