I've had a good innings. It's been a great experience. Now it is time to go. Full Stop. Le fin. The fat lass sings, Elvis has eaten the building, last orders.

I will soon be back in the angry land of my father, swearing at the telly and wearing jumpers in July. I will complain about the English weather and everything else, then remember fondly the sunny days spent building replica Saxon castles on Grand Haven beach or evenings drinking Founders Pale from jam jars and listening to Pavement in Stella's. Playing football on a soggy field in Kentwood and watching people in clogs sweep Holland High Street, despite being sober. I will especially ponder my various encounters with the homeless folk outside Kalamazoo train station.

One day soon, while walking through old London Town, I may even drift off into dreams of gun ownership that were cruelly foiled by virtue of my being foreign.

The yanks have been lovely to me, but I've finally had it. I've suffered the perversion of tea (party), the lack of roundabouts, country music that isn't really country music, religious saturation, the daily destruction of my native tongue, people liking my accent and asking me if I'm Australian. I even showed up for Fourth of July to watch them celebrate the end of an empire. (Do they have to do it every bloody year?) None of that even made my upper lip quiver. Until now.

The final violation.

Turns out all this time, some beardy, weirdy, tabloid sleazebag has been monitoring my e-mails and publishing them in his dirty rag. He spent time working in London, apparently. File me beside Scarlett Johansson and Richard Nixon. It's like a brain invasion. My dirty linen is in public and being aired.

I will return to the Toon, let the distress fade and make a new plan. Beware, West Michigan.

"There's people on the pitch, they think it's all over ... it is now."