Hardeep Singh Kohli: Lighter shade of silliness

Joke: What's red and smells of blue paint?

Red paint.

Full of beans thanks to the daily grind

I have been obsessed with coffee ever since I can remember. My dad is a tea man and I grew up in a tea house. But my first love has always been for coffee. I was very particular as a boy about only drinking ordinary Nescafe; I abhorred Gold Blend: it was too smooth and thought itself superior. I preferred a raw edge. I had some bad experiences in the late Seventies. Mellow Birds will make you smile, or so the advert said. It didn't. My mum was a fan of Camp Coffee, a liquid coffee syrup to which sugar and hot milk were added. I remember the bottle with great affection since it had on it the image of a Sikh soldier. It was the only commercially available product at the time that had an image that looked at all like anyone in my family. The coffee was neither here nor there; too much chicory.

Later in life I took to my own methods of coffee-making. I eschewed the instant upon the discovery of real coffee. Having experimented with cafetieres, percolators and all manner of gadgets, I settled on the French method of filter-dripped coffee. (I can't decide if this was because I saw Béatrice Dalle, below, make coffee like that in Betty Blue or because I genuinely thought it tasted better.) I had narrowed my choice down to a Colombian medium roast or a Kenyan full roast. Just when I thought I had the coffee conundrum cracked, I realised how much more I have to learn. A friend introduced me to the notion of self-grinding. It's not enough to make your own coffee, oh no. You should grind the beans. For the last week I have been grinding, experimenting with the coarseness of the grain and its interphase with water.

I have travelled the world in sourcing new beans: Ethiopia, Guatemala and Indonesia. It has been a revelation. I never knew coffee could be this tasty. Not only does the caffeine give me a wake-up kick in the morning, there's nothing like the close proximity of a grinder to your head first thing in the a.m. to clear the sleep from your mind.

In quest of aBooker's dozen

Books, books everywhere but not all of them seem read. The deadline for the Man Booker longlist is fast approaching. In a little over two weeks we five judges will have honed and hewn a gargantuan list of over 110 books into a longlist of a dozen, maybe 13. Then the hard work begins! My flat is strewn with books. There are five hardbacks laid open and flat on the couch; 20 on the dining table and a further dozen staring at me from a shelf. I seldom leave home without at least three of my literary companions, each like a small child obsessing for my attention, pleading for my concentration.

I turn from Victorian history to contemporary Dublin, to Medieval Europe to an Australian beach. I dream of concurrent narratives, first person voices and flashback sequences.

I can't wait to get to the longlist and then pore over and re-read the selected books in the hope that somehow we will be able to further narrow them down to the half dozen or so that form the shortlist. My life is turning into one big novel. The worst thing about it is that for months I've been denied one of my biggest pleasures – browsing in a bookshop. There's been no need.

Unless it's a busman's holiday, it'll drive me spare

It's July and, allegedly, it's summertime. This is the time of the year when people take a break from their wearying lives and venture off on holiday. They take the opportunity to rest their bodies and their minds and recharge their batteries.

Some indulge in exotica, visiting far-flung, rarely-seen corners of our planet. They have active holidays – walking, rafting, abseiling and the like. There are others who can think of nothing nicer than a short flight to Spain where the day-long Iberian sun is as dependable as the west-coast Scottish rain. They lie, lobster-like on beaches eating fish and chips and drinking Sangria.

Then there are those few who chose not to venture too far from home, choosing instead to sample the delights of Scotland. Loch Fyne at sunset, Glencoe at dawn, any Dundee pub in the late afternoon.

There is no shortage of opportunities, but you must first want to go on holiday. I struggle with holidays. I have no great desire to take them. It sounds daft, but I have sort of trained myself out of the desire to have a rest. As someone self-employed, a holiday was more a two-week period of not earning than a well-earned break. I always suspected that the best job offer in the world would appear the moment I spread my towel out on the beach, ready to be kissed and then stroked by the sun. Quite why I thought job offers would tumble towards me in those two weeks of the year when the remaining 50 had proven so fruitless is more a statement of my ability to let optimism triumph over reality.

None the less, I would find myself on day four of the holiday feeling listless and restless and unable to relax. I would stare at my silent mobile phone and wonder if I had correctly activated the roaming package with my service provider. I wanted to be back in the city, pounding the pavement and preparing to be employed. I felt dislocated from myself. I felt somehow guilty to be resting when I hadn't actually worked very much or very hard. (Perhaps the Protestant work ethnic had subliminally had an impact on me, despite being a Sikh educated by Jesuits.)

Nowadays I'm a little more relaxed about work yet still struggle with the notion of a holiday. I spend so much of my life travelling now that the idea of getting on another plane or train or automobile fills me with dread. I know I need to have some time to myself but I just can't manage it.

I had pencilled a week in August to visit Turkey. I would be unlikely to miss anything in a quiet month; and it was only a week. Of course, that week has now gone from my diary – something else came up, and before you know it, the seven days has been pared down to a long weekend, and it was barely worth leaving town anymore.

Perhaps I will eventually book some time away this year to escape; maybe three or four days in a wee B&B just outside Rutherglen. But the reality is this: I love working. I don't feel there is anything I need to escape from.