Notes for a Confused Life

The End

2009-04-28T13:20:00.004+01:00

Blogger told me this was the 100th post, but, having counted (I seem to have a lot of time on my hands) I realised that it isn't. Anyway, though it may not be my 100th post there's still something just a touch monumental about it. This post (which I think is my 98th or 96th, or something) is my last...

Let's just let that sink in for a moment...

Of course, now that I've given you a few seconds to digest that part of the news I can continue...

This post is my last... on Blogger. Yep, that's right, I've upped sticks and moved home to Wordpress (after all, I understand that's what all the cool kids are doing these days). Everything that once was (and actually still is and forever more shall be) here can now be found on the Wordpress blog. Every post and every comment (barring this final, Blogger exclusive one) has been duplicated with ease, thanks to Wordpress's handy migration tool. With any luck this will signal a bit of a return to more frequent posting.

So please, follow me across to the new blogsite. I hope you enjoy reading about my delightful (and, I'm sure on occasion, not so delightful) adventures, misadventures and musings.

You can find the new and improved (but mostly the same) Notes for a Confused Life right HERE.

And, because I can't help but be lead wherever the cool kids say I should go, over the last month I've also been posting on Twitter. You can check out my feed on the right hand side of the new blog (can you do that Blogger? I don't think so) or go straight to my Twitter home HERE.

In the meantime, I wanted to thank everybody who's been following me on Blogger for the last few years. It's been great to know that there are people out there who will actually listen to and appreciate my writing, despite the fact of it's occasional moroseness. I hope that you'll all take a look at my new home on Wordpress.

PS. As a little addendum to this final post I thought I'd mention that I'm going to be experimenting with creating a few more blogs. Once they're up and running, you'll find links to them on my Wordpress page, as well as at the end of this final post.

No broken, just mildly sprained

2009-03-14T02:02:00.003Z

I have a horrid feeling that my last post read like I was having some kind of psychotic breakdown. Rest assured, my mental state, whilst a little fragile at the moment, isn't so volatile that I'm about to go on a shotgun wielding, kill crazy rampage. My destructiveness extends only to myself. Obviously that doesn't mean I'm about to jump of a bridge either. I'm making things worse now aren't I?

Anyway, over the last 24 hours my mood's been very up and down, but I think I'm probably over the worst of it, at least for now.

I've written a hell of a lot of posts for somebody who, only yesterday, was going to give up on the whole blogging thing all together. I felt so differently then, almost like I was a different person. God, I was trying to write this post to show how much better I'm feeling; right now I seem to be insinuating that I have multiple personality disorder.

Right, I'm going to wrap things up now, before I end up suggesting that I'm suffering from every single kind of mental illness in the book. By the way, my next post will be this blog's 100th. I don't have anything special planned for it, but I just thought I'd mention it.

What's wrong with people?

2009-03-13T22:59:00.002Z

Every time I leave the house and go to my local shops, the people out there, on the roads and in the shops, upset me. I hate this place; I hate the people with their small minded, me-first selfishness. Nobody cares about anybody else.

Just up the road from me is a junction with two lanes. Just beyond where you wait at the traffic lights the left hand lane is usually filled with cars, so there’s no real point in starting off in this lane. Of course people do. They do it all the time and force their way out like the selfish little shits they are. That happened today. Some cock in an Audi A3 (Audi drivers really are the new BMW owners) pulled up alongside me. I knew what he was going to try to do. He wanted to force his way through. He wanted to skip the queue. And I thought, Fuck you. I’m not letting you through. You’ll have to learn to be patient. Join the right lane and don’t be a prick. I put my foot full to the floor and didn’t change into third, but the fucker had a faster car than me, and he wasn’t backing off. I had to break and let him through. My desire to prevent an accident was greater than his desire to not cause one. What the fuck is wrong with these people? If I hadn’t braked sharply he’d have rammed into the back of the first parked car. Maybe I’m in the wrong too. Maybe I shouldn’t try to impose my belief system on somebody else.

But I fucking hate this town. It’s full of arseholes. Nobody gives a crap about anybody else. Shopkeepers are rude. They don’t say hello, they don’t say thank you. A good deal of them don’t even tell you what the total is when it’s time to pay up. They just sit their wordlessly, expecting to hand over your cash without any kind of prompt. I walk up to a till, smile and say hello, but I get nothing in return. Half the time they barely pay any attention to me; I feel like I’m just interrupting them, I’m just another thing that gets in the way of them talking to their colleagues in a language I don’t understand. No wonder I feel so isolated at times. I don’t understand most of the conversations that are going on around me. I firmly believe that one of the things that cause the most division between people of different cultures is an inability to communicate. How can we begin to understand each other’s cultures and ways if we can’t understand the words that they are saying? Sometimes I walk into a shop and just feel unwelcome, like I’m not a part of the community that should be there, so I’m treated like a 2nd class citizen. I’m friendly, I’m polite, I’m even nice, but still nothing.

In truth, there is no real community around here, just disparate sets of people, each with their own agendas’ and a mutual distrust, and even hatred, of anybody who doesn’t belong to their small minded, insular, clique.

I just can’t live here anymore. I try to treat everybody as an equal, regardless of whoever they are. I treat everybody with the same courtesy that I’d expect to receive in return, but I get nothing.

I use the self service tills at my local Tesco now. I feel like the level of customer service I receive from them is way higher than I’d get from any of the lazy, uncouth, till jockeys.

I live in a main road where I constantly hear the sounds of cars as they go by. So frequently I’m forced to endure the “Boom, Boom, Boom” bass sound coming from some inconsiderate little noise polluting shit’s car stereo. Why be such an obnoxious little prick? Why do something that’s only real purpose must be to infuriate others. Why be like that?

Like I said, every time I leave this house and don’t head straight for a tube into Central London, I encounter someone whose behaviour disgusts me. Actually, one night, whilst I was taking the five minute walk from my local tube station, some disgusting piece of excrement appalled me. Right in front of me, just as I was about to pass him, the foul bastard gobbed into my path. I can’t stand people who spit. It’s disgusting and there’s no need for it whatsoever.

I truly believe that if everybody was just a little bit nicer, a little bit kinder and a little bit more polite to each other, the world would be a far better place. All it takes is a few words; Say please, thank you. Smile at each other. Wave to show your appreciation when someone lets you through when you’re driving. A little bit of consideration. That’s all I want. I just need everybody to display the tiniest bit of empathy. I said earlier that language can create a barrier between people, but communication isn’t just about words. It’s about attitude, it’s about demeanour, it’s about all those little gestures, both conscious and subconscious that show you care.

It doesn’t take much, but still, they don’t even try. I may feel these things more deeply than most, but I’m willing to bet that this sort of thing has a cumulative effect. When people mistreat each other, no matter how slightly, it has an effect. It seeps into your soul, making it rot away until all that’s left is the fetid corpse of your own morality.

Do something nice for someone, treat someone with respect and they’ll remember it. Then, maybe they’ll do something good for someone else. The cycle can go on and on and on and on and maybe, given time, the world will end up being just that little bit more bearable.

A lost post

2009-03-13T02:30:00.003Z

OK, so this was a post I was working on whilst I was on the train from Kings Cross to York.

“Well, I'm having to type one handed with my screen at a weird, backwards angle, but I'm still managing to come to you live from a train bound for York. Why, you might ask, am I going to York? Well, I'll tell you. I'm off to a Stag Weekend. One of my friends is getting married in a couple of weeks. Oddly enough, it's only the second wedding of one of my Uni mates that I’m attending.

Anyway, it's been a little more than a week since my last post[meaning the post about the break up email], and I've calmed down an awful lot. In truth, as soon as I hit the “publish” button all the bitterness and vitriol drained away. To be honest, and you may have guessed this from my last post, I really wasn't all that in to her. She was fun to go out with, sure, but we were far too different for there to be any real future in it. Actually, to tell you the truth, a lot of what I wrote was sort of designed to make me look a little more wronged than I actually was. I'd had a fair few thoughts about calling it off with her in the preceding couple of weeks before I received her email. Actually, I know that I made a bit of a big deal about being broken up with via email. A lot of people, could, made mention of the fact that it was quite a bad thing, and, at the time, I agreed. In actual fact, it didn’t bother me all that much.

I can't type on the train, it's too cramped. I'll have to wait until I get to the station to finish.”

Of course, I didn’t get round to finishing it. I ended up in a pub called “The Maltings”, reading “Dawn of the Dumb” by Charlie Brooker whilst I waited for one of my friends to arrive on the 4pm train.

As a little post script to all that, this girl and I have been trading emails for the last couple of weeks, so I guess everything’s cool there. She’d suggested meeting up again as friends, and, for the record, I think she’s pretty sincere. Like I said, in itself, it wasn’t a big thing, but I think that it has had some sort of effect on me, deep down. Ultimately, whilst I really do think that it was a good idea to stop seeing her, it’s possible that, in a far more general sense, things not working out affected me more than I realised.

Getting Better

2009-03-13T02:18:00.002Z

Well, I’ve been out of it for most of the day, but I did, relatively randomly, start to feel better as night fell. I say randomly, but I suspect that there’s a reason behind it. I’ll do a little research and let you all know what I’ve found out.

I just wanted to thanks everybody for their support. I’m kind of puzzled by “Anonymous”, because, to be perfectly frank, I know exactly how to think and feel. In many ways that’s the problem; I know what I think (though, at times I may express myself a little guardedly or perhaps mildly inarticulately) and what I feel seems to depend greatly on my brain chemistry at any given moment. Actually that’s started to make me question the difference between thoughts and feeling. Are thoughts a conscious, cognitive process whilst feelings are purely involuntary and unguarded? I really should have studied psychology; at least I’d have a faint idea about what I meant. I’ll look it up later. Anyway, that’s kind of going off on a tangent.

I have a very clear idea of who I am and what I want; I’m just a little unsure of how to make all of that work in the real world. Not only that, the depression plays a part in making me not want to even try. It makes me want to fail so as I can quench it's thirst for misery.

So that’s the difficulty I face. I have to deal with the little bio-chemical bastard that whispers bile in my ear.

All I can say is that, right now, I feel better. Not 100%, but better.

A break

2009-03-12T05:11:00.002Z

This may be my last post for a while. I'm not feeling good at all. I've come to the conclusion that I can't get a good job because I'm just not bright enough for the things I want to do. I can't write as well as I'd like, I'm not as intelligent as I feel I should be.

I tried to solve a maths problem I saw on the internet today, but even after I was presented with the solution, I didn't understand it.

For much of the day I've done absolutely nothing. I tried to apply for a job, but I just couldn't do it. No application I've ever done has ever led to any work, so why bother. Besides, I'm not sure I even want the job. I don't even know if I could do it anyway. At the moment I just can’t seem to do anything.

I get bored, very quickly, with repetitive, administrative tasks, but I don't know if I'm really capable of anything more. Of course, I can't even get that sort of job since employers can clock that I'll find them tedious. Actually, about 15 months ago I got turned down for a job working at a company in Ealing for exactly that reason.

I don't think I'll ever manage to realise my potential, but then my potential falls just a little short of anything worthwhile anyway, so there's probably little point anyway.

So, I fall between the cracks in the employment market. I don't fit in anywhere.

I don't really fit in anywhere in the wider sense too. My values and beliefs seem at odds with the world at large. I'd explain that at greater length, but I just can't muster up the energy. Basically I don't understand why most people are so unkind, so unpleasant. I don't understand why the world is so oriented towards greed. Why do people become so obsessed with acquiring wealth? Why do they wish to have dominion over others and subjugate them to their will? I can't stand authority. I can't stand it when people try to tell me what I must do or how I should behave. I have my own set of rules, my own set of guidelines and morals. If I stray from those I usually punish myself enough by feeling shitty about it.

I’ll be back. Maybe not before too long. Maybe it’ll even be tomorrow. Who knows how I’ll feel.

Isn't Technology Marvelous

2009-03-09T23:18:00.004Z

Thank Christ for Sky Plus

My mood has been lifted by the opportunity afforded the little hard drive under my telly. I've just watched QI(technically QI XL, the extended edition) and, throughout the show I was in stitches. I'm rather a fan of the show anyway, but this particular edition focused on film, a subject with which I'm particularly enamoured.

Obviously, what with the show being staffed by superb brainboxes (and Alan Davies) it initially gave me something of an inferiority complex, but I soon got over that.

It's also reminded me of something said about mental health issues. He once remarked that manic depression was the best sort of depression to have because, whilst you were crippled by the lows, you were more than adequately compensated by the manic highs, enabling the sufferer to indulge in all sorts of creative flights of fantasy. It's a shame then, that I suffer only from the common, garden variety of depression which puts me in a mindset where I'm completely unable to get on with anything at all. Oh, if only I were bi-polar.

Of course, I could have just as easily used iPlayer, but my point would be much the same; technology is fantastic.

I'm not checking out.

2009-03-09T14:17:00.004Z

I may have overstated the suicide bit; I don't think I'd ever do that, but I do feel extremely low and my Mum really is exacerbating things.

I don't want to upset her but I can't make things magically happen. If I try to pursue everything she says I'll just end up becoming more and more unhappy.

She walked in to my room and told me that the first thing I had to do was find a job. Moments later, she came back and told me that the first thing I had to do was eBay all the old magazines I found in the loft. She then told me that I couldn't write all day (which is what I want to do), I could do it at night. Of course, when I said I was going to write, all I meant was top write job applications, eBay sales and a few articles to send to magazine in teh hope of getting some work.

I can't stand being told what I can and cannot do.

She things that I spend 12 hours a day in bed. The truth is, I naturally can't sleep until late. And could you blame me. I go to bed late so that I can have a little peace and quiet, some time to myself without the moaning and the shouting.

The irony is, I was going to spend my day doing all of those things, but I can't stand being ordered to do it all. Her constant sniping and moaning just makes em feel awful; so bad that I just can't deal with anything.

I need to get out of here. I just can't stand it anymore. I just want to be around somebody who's supportive, but I'd settle for being left alone. She's gone out shopping so I've a few moments to myself. I actually called her and asked if she wouldn't mind picking me up a couple of cans of Spaghetti hoops. I got moaned at. "Oh, so you want me to get your shopping for you whilst you stay in bed all day." I just can't stand this.

So, nothing gets done, and it's all her fault. I feel like I need to go away somewhere for a few weeks where I can have some peace and quiet and just be allowed to do things my way. Without that I'm just going to go nowhere.

I've had enough

2009-03-09T13:07:00.005Z

I've tried out Twitter, and frankly, 140 characters isn't long enough, so I'm probably not going to bother with it anymore.

I have woken up this morning with a headache (again). Last night I was feeling anxious and depressed. I had pains in my chest which seemed to have returned to me this morning after my Mother started, as soon as she saw me, moaning at me about getting a job. So far she's suggested that I work part time at Sainsburys or join the army. So, it seems that she wants me dead. I'd kill myself after a stint at a supermarket or be killed by a hail of bullets or blown to pieces by a suicide bomber if I joined the armed forces.

I would like a job, yes, but I can't just keep getting rubbishy ones to placate my Mum. That's all I've been doing for the past few years and it's just getting me nowhere. If she simply wants me to continue my cycle of misery then I'm just going to have to check out of this life for good.

How on earth does it help me to have her say that I'm making her miserable? Does she not realise that by saying that sort of thing she'll simply make me feel worse and thus less capable of actually improving my situation?

I was at a friend's stag do this weekend and, presuming that I make it through the day, I'll jot down some of my thoughts about that in a future post.

But truly, I've had enough.

No Surprises

2009-02-26T01:33:00.006Z

So, the lesson here is, trust your instincts. I was completely right about the girl. Today I got an email (yes, an email) telling me that she didn’t want to see me “romantically” anymore.

I’ll reprint the relevant section below. Bear in mind this all followed a breezy how are you, oh I did this and that at the weekend – style bit. Go on, have a read; I’ll be here when you’ve finished.

“I'm really sorry but I have to tell you that I'm not sure about progressing anything romantically and I think I've more or less made up my mind about that. They say you should tell people face to face so I'm sorry if you consider this email inappropriate.

Anyhow, I hope it's not a big deal to you and for what it's worth I have definitely really enjoyed your company. Maybe if you felt like it we could be buddies and catch up again in a few weeks or something once I get back from Turkey. Just see how it goes.”

Actually, having read that, I’ve just noticed that she’s completely un-definite (not a word, but I’m in no mood to care) about the whole thing. “...I’m not sure...” and “...I think I’ve more or less made up my mind...” If you truly weren’t sure then you wouldn’t have sent the email. You’re damn sure, so why say otherwise. What a load of bullshit. Also, did you notice the complete lack of emotion in the letter? It’s phrased more like a job rejection letter than a real Dear John. Shit, she clearly spent little time bothering with it, because she obviously just dashed it off in her lunch hour (it came at 1.30pm on the dot). Unbelievable.

Right, now that it’s all over I’m going to share all my reservations about this girl with you.

Firstly, she was from New Zealand. She was always going to go back there, so any relationship I had was always going to have a sell by date.

At one point she mentioned horoscopes. Frankly this is unacceptable.

She had no idea about popular culture whatsoever. I’d mention TV, Films and a whole load of other stuff and she didn’t have a clue. Basically I had to completely bypass most of the things I would usually say because she had no clue as to what I was going on about.

Another issue, she was too young. I’m 31, she was 25. Six years is a bit too much of an age gap if you ask me. At least it certainly seemed to be in this case.

I always maintained that I would probably only go out with people who went to university. I later expanded (or clarified) that by saying that education and intelligence were important to me. I think I just need to see somebody who’s on my level intellectually (not a high level, admittedly, but it’s frustrating to have to talk to someone who doesn’t understand what you’re saying. If I wanted that I could just talk to my Mum). This is what happens when I ignore that policy. I said once that, one of the things I liked about her was that she asked me what some of the words I used meant. Well, I’d have really liked it if she’d already have bloody known. I sound like a snob don't I, but I really can't help needing to be stimulated by any conversation I might have. Otherwise I'm getting nothing. If I'm not growing, if I'm not progressing, I'm just regressing and I'm really not fond of travelling backwards.

I guess I know myself well enough by now to be fully clued up about what I want in a relationship and the sort of person with whom I’d want to have that relationship. Quite why I chose to go out with someone who ticked pretty much none of the boxes is beyond me.

She likes drum and base. That’s her favourite music. For fuck’s sake. Who the hell even likes drum and base anymore? Is she from the 90’s?

Also, whenever anybody says they want to be friends, they don’t mean it. Why the fuck bother with the thinly veiled nicety. Just be honest. Actually, that’s ironic, because one of the things I thought I admired about her was her honesty. It seems like I was wrong about that too.

She’s pretty, I’ll give her that, but when you have almost no interests in common, then it’s not enough.

It should also be added that when I was trying to decide whether I was going to break up with my last proper girlfriend, I made a list of pros and cons, so at least I’ve learnt that I haven’t really changed at all.

Frankly I felt like it was going way too slow. We’d only seen each other once a week. I would have liked to see her more often.

Anyway, this was my response. I wrote it within about 30 minutes of getting her email.

“It’s ok. For some reason I kind of figured that was the case. There was just something that stopped me from feeling entirely comfortable. Maybe that came across in how I’ve acted around you? I can’t be sure though.

I know this is probably going to be an awkward question, but what was it that finally made you come to that decision? I think I have a fair idea, but I’d kind of just like to hear your reasons. I suppose I’d like to know where I went wrong really. Anyway, if you don’t really feel like talking about it all, then I understand, but in the past I’ve regretted not asking the question and I thought it might be easier to answer in an email.

I wondered, perhaps, if my situation (and I don’t just mean my obvious failings, like a lack of permanent regular work and being stuck here at home), didn’t really lend itself to this sort of thing. I won’t go into details though; that would possibly be a bit silly at this point.

I’m glad you had a good weekend though. It would be nice to meet up again some time, but you can let me know if that’s still something you’d want to do once you return from Turkey.

Anyway, some work finally came through for me, so at least I’ve got something to get on with.

Are you feeling okay after your fall the other day? I’m sorry I forgot to ask about that before.

Finally, I just wanted to say that I’ve had a really great time with you over these past few weeks, so thank you for that.”

Asking why was a bad idea, I know. But why not ask a bit if an impertinent question. She tried to bypass any awkwardness by writing me an email to dump me, so why not make her squirm a little. That wasn’t my intention at the time I wrote it; I really just wanted to know why, but I refuse to feel bad about asking when I only felt like I could because of the impersonal nature of emails and that, after all, was her chosen communication method, not mine.

Anyway, that’s it for today. What I’ve written above may not be all that coherent, but I just can’t check it over again.

By the way, on a lighter note, I actually got given the writing work that I have to do. It’ll be a measly amount in my account, but it’s certainly better than nothing. I should really get to it now.

I have a bad feeling about this.

2009-02-24T21:11:00.000Z

I’m starting to get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The year seems to have started off so well, but I just get the impression it’s about to take a turn for the worse. I was on the train on the way out to a date with this girl I’ve been seeing. All day I hadn’t received a single email. As it turns out I must have had some sort of problem with hotmail because as soon as checked my email on my phone, a message came through from the woman who’s been giving me all this writing work. She had asked if I was free to do any work that day. I emailed straight back and said that I’d had a problem with my email but I’d be happy to get it done over the weekend. She emailed me back, and said she’d send the work over. It’s Tuesday now and I still haven’t received anything.

Not only that, my agency got in contact with me on Wednesday last week and told me about what sounded like a fantastic job. Of course I asked if they were sure I had the requisite experience. Yeah, you should be fine. Well, I wasn’t . They didn’t bother telling me what was going on, I had to ask. Now, believe it or not, the reason I didn’t quite cut it was (drum roll please), I didn’t have enough experience. You’d have thought they’d check these sort of things instead of blindly offering me what was obviously a job that, whilst not beyond my capabilities, was something that I would never be able to get. Better to have no hope at all than false hope.

Anyway, it’s all put me in such a morose mood. I feel like, work-wise, things are never going to work out. I’m perfectly capable of doing everything that I want to do. Quite why so few people have faith in my abilities I don’t know. The greatest tragedy is that of those few people, none are in a position to elevate me to the station that I deserve. And, conceited though it may sound, I do feel like I deserve it.

Anyway, I’ve been ok for most of the day, but then this feeling washed over me as I put the rubbish out to be recycled (I don’t think that symbolic or anything, but it sounds like it should be). I suddenly felt like everything was going to shit. Yesterday I was getting hugely paranoid about not having received a reply over the weekend to a text I sent this girl I’m seeing. So, on Monday evening, I texted her again. This time, she replied (I’m guessing that, because I sent it really late, she didn’t get it until later and then forgot about replying). Then I sent her an email about going out on either Wednesday, Friday or Saturday. I figured out a bunch of things that we could do too. Of course, as yet, I’ve heard nothing. Again, she’s probably busy and just hasn’t had the time to reply, but I can’t help but think that she doesn’t really want to see me again. It’s stupid, maybe, but if I just concentrate on some of the negative things I may have possibly imagined she’d said and ignore all the positive stuff, it’s definitely easy to come to that conclusion.

God, being mentally ill really screws you up sometimes.

Then again, one of the days I’d suggested was tomorrow, so maybe I should have heard from her by now. Aaarrrh. For Christ’s sake, why the hell can’t I just calm down. If I just had something else to do, like this damn writing work that I’m still waiting for, it wouldn’t matter so much to me. Well, it would matter to me, but I certainly wouldn’t be fixating on it if I had something else with which to occupy my mind. Unfortunately, none of the menial tasks I could be doing around the house really do that.

Anyway, on the plus side, I’ve started to do some exercise again. I feel like I’ve been getting really fat and unfit of late. Even climbing up the escalators at underground stations was getting to be a bit of a chore, so it was clearly way past time to get started. Besides, if I’m wrong, and things aren’t over with the girl I’m seeing, nakedness will, at some point, ensue, and I’d definitely like to wobble a little less when (or if) that happens.

In the meantime, I can only hope that I get the work through and that I actually hear from the girl again.

Feeling Anxious

2009-02-13T03:20:00.003Z

A couple of my news posts have been put up on the website of the company for which I'm currently working.

This has actually raised a few issues for me.

1, I completely failed to negotiate payment for them. This was a bit stupid on my part, but I was so flattered and excited to be asked that I really didn't think.

2, They've been slightly re-written. I'm really not fond of having my work re-jigged by anyone else, especially when the changes actually make things slightly worse. Once could argue that, once I've given over the work she can do whatever she likes with it. She has, after all, paid for it. Except, of course, she hasn't.

3, I'm not getting enough work. I'm just waiting around for her to call me up with extra work and I'm hopelessly grateful when I receive it. I need a full time job, it's as simple as that. I need to get a proper salary and move out.

4, I need to start writing this script. It's just important.

Over the last few nights I've been having some anxiety problems. Some tightness in my throat, headaches and sleepless nights. I think it's because of this lack of security and worry about when I'm going to get my next work. I'd be happy if I was working an awful lot, but I'm not.

On a lighter note, I had another good date tonight and it looks like I'll be seeing her again on Saturday.

I need to sleep. Saturday might be starting quite early.

It's getting better all the time

2009-02-08T02:43:00.003Z

I’m at least mildly irritating myself this week because, thus far, I’ve completely failed to write any of my screenplay. I have, however, written an awful lot of stuff for which I have (or at least soon will be) paid.

I rather like the idea that I can work without having to bother changing out of my pyjamas (actually a t-shirt/shorts combo). I’ve always hated the routine nature of commuting to work. After a while it gets terribly tiresome having to walk past the same old people. The businessman (if I were Japanese I might just describe him as being a salary man) with his briefcase, the incredibly tally blonde girl (she is, I’m pretty sure, a little taller than me), all of the mother’s taking their kids to school. It just becomes tedious after a while.

With things as they are now, I can just work as and when I feel like it. Often that means waking up at 2pm and working until 4am, and that suits me fine. Routine really isn’t my thing. I just get bored.

Still, my last job did have some advantages. Without it I wouldn’t have met the girl I’m currently seeing (and, after a week of not seeing her, we’re finally meeting up this coming Thursday).

I’m actually quite happy to see my life continue in a similar vein. Of course, I still want to move out, but I really hope that I can somehow get enough money to do that without having to set foot in an office again, at least not in the standard 9-5 way.

I really should have given this all a go years ago. I’ve kind of wasted myself on crappy, unfulfilling jobs that were, if I’m not being too big headed, well beneath me. Well, certainly not suited to my talents anyway.

Of course, I’m still worried about my burgeoning relationship with this new girl. I actually fancied her since the moment she entered the office. I’m trying to play it cool of course, but cool really isn’t my thing, especially after a few drinks.
Actually, that’s precisely why I hate these early stages; It’s all is about pretence and games-playing; honesty really seldom comes into it. I feel like I’m trying to project an image of myself that, although certainly represents a facet of my personality, doesn’t really show the full picture. But you just can’t be upfront about all your craziness can you? That would just put people off. Wouldn’t it?

She likes that I’m smart, she likes my “very blue eyes”. She really seems to have a genuine interest in me, but would she really like me if she knew everything there was to know right away?

I really do like her. She’s gorgeous. She has a great outlook on life. She’s actually one of the few people I’ve met who’s not criticised me for using long words. On the contrary, she’s gone away and looked them up or asked what the meant and seemed genuinely interested in the answer.

In some ways, that’s her quality that I most admire. So many people shy away from knowledge; she seems to embrace it.
I think she’s fantastic.

Anyway, enough. I’m a little cold and a touch drunk. It’s time to stop blogging. I should hide myself under the covers, keep warm and drift off to sleep. Tomorrow I have to finish off my remaining work. After that I can look forward to my first cheque. Once I’ve got that I suppose I can actually genuinely call myself a professional writer.

I do hope all this makes sense. Just bear in mind that I'm posting this immediately after a long drinking session and it's quarter to three in the morning.

Early Retirement

2009-02-01T20:32:00.005Z

I think I may stop playing video games for a while. I just don't really seem to be getting the same enjoyment out of them as I used to. I actually had this theory that my ability to enjoy video games goes in cycles. I have a few years where I absolutely love them, followed by a period of time where I just can't be bothered. Like I said, I'd always assumed it was a cyclical thing, but I get the impression that I may have been a bit wrong.

Obviously, now that I'm earning a little bit of money by writing about video games this whole situation is could probably prove to be a bit of an inconvenience. Actually, I think that the real irony of the situation is that it's precisely because I've got the job writing about video games that I'm a bit bored with playing them.

Anyway, this is how my new, revised theory about my gaming habits goes...

I only play games when I'm bored and unhappy.

I had a spell of uninterrupted gaming from about the age of three, when an Atari 2600 first materialised in my house, right up until I was nineteen playing Mario Kart on my Super Nintendo. So, the question is, what happened when I was nineteen?

Well, for one thing, during the course of a time trial challenge of Mario Circuit 1, my lap time was beaten by precisely 0.1 seconds. As hard as I tried, I simply could not beat my opponent’s time of 1.11.77. You may ask how it is that, twelve years later, I can remember the exact winning time. After all, I'm not some rain main style numerical genius. No, instead, to compound his supremacy, the winning time matched exactly my date of birth. Sure, in the year or so that followed, I played a few of the old school Lucasarts graphic adventures, but for the most part, my passion for gaming was extinguished right there.

So, I don't like getting beaten. That's one reason. The next is, I believe, the main impetus behind my temporary retirement from gaming. I started to have a life. That particular game of Mario Kart was played within the confines of my room in my Hall of Residence. I was away from home, away from the tedium of my boring little suburban town, free to do whatever I wanted to do. And what did I want to do? I wanted to go out every night.

Before then, my friends had always been dreary and dull. I never felt like I was on quite the same level as them. I don’t think I mean that I was better than them, just different. I remember thinking, on one occasion as I sat in from of a computer in my friend’s bedroom (it may have been during one of our many LAN Parties where we’d each take out computers round to each others houses, network them together and play Doom), I wished that I could just write their dialogue for them. As far as I was concerned, they never seemed to give what I would consider to be the correct response to anything I might say. Things that seemed obvious to me simply passed them by. I remember suggesting that we should maybe go to see a band some time. It just went completely over their heads. They stared at me briefly before returning their gaze to their computer screens. I didn’t bother suggesting anything ever again.

Actually, one of them contacted me on Facebook a little while ago. We chatted a little, caught up with things. He’s married with kids and a dog and living in Milton Keynes. All quite pleasant stuff. He’s a computer programmer, which I guess kind of figures because that was the sort of thing he was always in to. He sounded like he was really happy. I didn’t add him as a friend. I suppose if I’d wanted to remain in contact with him I would’ve bothered a lot sooner, but I left him and the rest of it all behind when I moved away to university.

I came back home for the first weekend after I started uni. I think a lot of people thought I wouldn’t return. It was, remember, only 3 weeks since my Dad had died, and I wasn’t really coping too well. Anyway, when I got back home, I found out that the aforementioned friend had come back from his university on Thursday. He’d decided not to return having found the place depressing because of the “breeze block walls” in his room in halls. We met up on the Friday night in a pub just down the road from me, “The Rayners”, which is now boarded up awaiting a council planning decision that will probably turn it into flats.

I’d decided that I’d try to convince him to go back. I thought that if he didn’t stay he’d really be missing out. After all, my Hall of residence was entirely composed of breeze blocks, but you couldn’t see them once you’d put your posters up.
When I arrived he was there with someone else, someone whom I later discovered was a gay friend whom he’d met god knows when and where.

So, I waxed lyrical about how great university was and how he ought to give it another try. I wasn’t really sure if I was getting through to him, but I was really determined to try. He popped off to the loo and, as soon as he was gone, his mate started having a go at me. He told me to shut up about university. He said that my friend was better off back home. I disagreed quite fervently. I reasoned that my friend was just a little timid and fearful of change, but, in the long run he’d be better off if he didn’t drop out. I had my mate’s best interests at heart, the other guy simply didn’t want him to go back for what I assumed must have been his own selfish reasons.

My friend returned from the toilet and sat back down. I headed off to the loo myself and by the time I came back, there’d obviously been some sort of discussion, judging by the conspiratorial look on the faces of my drinking companions.

What happened next was a bit of a shock; my friend’s companion touched up my leg. I recoiled immediately. The pair laughed away. Clearly they had set their minds to unsettle me. They’d succeeded. You have to remember, at the time I was only 18 and a little less able to deal with unfamiliar situations than I am now. Let’s face it, at the age of 18, when you haven’t so much as kissed a girl, you’re going to be suffering from a fair amount of insecurity about your sexuality. Not only that, as I mentioned before, my Dad had died only three weeks earlier, so I was already in a poor state of mind.

I left the pub pretty quickly. I never saw my friend again and didn’t hear from him until he communicated with me through Facebook a few months ago.

On the plus side, I guess the whole experience confirmed that I really wouldn’t be fond of the intimate touch of another man. It also confirmed that my ex-friend was a git.

Regular readers will be well aware of my, as it turned out, quite unnecessary panicking earlier in the week. Fortunately, on Friday, I ended up meeting up with the lovely girl I’ve been seeing lately. I had a really amazing time; I just wish that it hadn’t been brought to what I considered to be a bit of a premature ending. London Transport are, quite frankly, a massive pain in the arse. Why on Earth can’t they run the tube later? That’s sort of a rhetorical question because I am aware that they close the tube to maintain the lines, but surely they don’t have to do that every night on every stretch of rail? Is their workmanship of such poor quality that as single days use might break it apart?

Anyway, the night felt like it was over far too soon. I could have happily stayed out for many hours more. Of course, it started with a bit of dramatically bad navigation on my part. Somehow, I managed to get lost trying to find the Millennium Bridge from St Paul’s Station. It’s never been a problem for me before, so quite why it had to happen when I was trying to be impressive is beyond me. Actually, scratch that, I think that, with that last sentence, I’ve just answered my own question. That and it was dark, so everything might have looked just that little bit different. I’m just making excuses now aren’t I?

Today I’ve been mulling over all the mistakes I made and analysing all the stupid things I might have said during the course of the evening, but I know that, ultimately, all the recriminations are completely pointless. The only thing that matters is that I didn’t bugger it up so much that she didn’t want to see me again. She definitely does want to see me, she mentioned a next time in her text after the date, but quite when that’ll come I don’t know. I know that she’s pretty busy next week, so I’m not sure they’ll be an opportunity go out. Then again she was busy this week too, but she still managed to find some time. I suppose that’s probably a good sign too.

Actually, it’s my navigational ineptitude that provided the final impetus to upgrade my phone to one that actually has GPS. I’ve been rather keen on the idea of having a phone with GPS for quite some time now. I also quite fancied moving to a tariff that would provide me with inclusive internet access and some minutes that I could use during the day and with any network that I like. Well now (or soon, presuming they don’t mind sending me my upgrade a week early) I can do all of those things, albeit at the cost of £30 a month and a 2 year contract. So I can’t upgrade for two years. For as long as I’ve had phones, I’ve been upgrading my mobile more or less every year, so I’m a little worried that I’m going to become fed up with my new phone before the time is up. Well, we’ll see, but I should say at this point that I’m currently using my old K800, which I got way back at the end of 2006, because my current phone has a crappy flash and keeps switching itself off at random, inconvenient moments. I think I’ll see if I can try to peddle it to Computer Exchange next week. That and everything else I don’t want and can’t be bothered to sell on eBay.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make about fifty paragraphs ago is that now, once more, I feel like hanging up my joypad. Of course, that, if you really want to take the metaphor literally, will no doubt be more difficult than before because all my consoles controllers are wireless and therefore have no leads by which they can be hung. In all fairness, I’m not quite at the point where I want to stop playing video games, but I’m definitely heading quite rapidly in that direction. With all the writing work that I’m getting (with more to follow hopefully), my new adventures in dating and even this blogging, I have neither the time, nor, indeed, the inclination, for gaming. With everything else I get a sense that I’m actually getting somewhere, I gain a sense of achievement. With gaming, all I have is a sense of frustration and annoyance. Xbox live achievements and gamerpoints simply aren’t enough to motivate me. Honestly, I can’t see why you’d bother to do it at all if you have anything even vaguely better to do.

I should add, that I’m also trying to work on a script idea that one of my mate’s came up with. I’ll see if I can get at least 5-10 pages done to show him next week, so at least he can see if I’m on the right sort of track.

Jumping to the worst case scenario

2009-01-26T19:09:00.003Z

Okay, massive overreaction. She's just texted to say she'll call me from work tomorrow (so that the call's free). I really, really need to pull myself together. I can't let this stuff affect me so much. I need to be more positive and stop jumping to conclusions based on the flimsiest of premises.

But enough blog posting, there's work to be done.

2009-01-26T18:40:00.002Z

Maybe I should just outline everything that's wrong with me. We'll start with the basics.

No job (The work I'm doing at the moment really doesn't count).

No place of my own. That means I have to live at home. With my Mum. Who has now just had a go at me for making her miserable because I'm upset.

I have more, (the depression, the geekiness, the (admittedly less over the last couple of weeks) fatness, the fact that I'm actually pretty dull and unexciting...

But, screw it. Girls are way too much trouble anyway. I always end up feeling awful afterwards and I just get the impression that the pleasure isn't worth the interminable pain.

I think what I'm saying is that if you've been missing the downbeat comedy that is my miserable excuse for a life, then you're in luck; normal service has resumed.

And so it begins...

2009-01-26T17:28:00.002Z

OK, well I guess this was inevitable. I was really just waiting for this to happen, but I'm pretty sure that the girl I saw last week isn't all that interested in me. I guess it's obvious why. I don't have a job, I live at home; the list goes on a and on. What am I basing this all on. Well I emailed her today and didn't get a response. In of itself that's no bad thing, she doesn't have much time to access teh internet at work. Anyway, I thought I'd text her to see how things were going and to see if she was free this week. Her first text didn't even mention meeting up. Her second (sent within a few minutes of the first, said she couldn't see me this week.

Maybe I was too eager, maybe not enough. Maybe I'm just an arse, I really don't know. Anyway, she says she's busy for much of this week and really needs to save her money. She's basically put me off for another week or two. That's it really isn't it. She's probably seeing someone else who's much cooler, more handsome and with a better situation than me. I loose.

I have a lot of work to do this week (some more writing work came through for me today), plus I'm meeting up with a friend to discuss another project, so I do have plenty of things with which to fill my week, so from a logistical side, it doesn't really matter too much. It's just that I think

I was just getting over my anxiety over the whole thing and heading towards being relaxed about it. What a dumb mistake.

I can't even say I'll pay because she mentioned that she wanted to have a quiet week. In other words, she covered all her bases. She doesn't want to see me.

I wish my happiness weren't so intrinsically linked to something so tenuous as whether a girl will go out with me or not. She also use the phrase, "Don't take it personally..." before telling me se couldn't see me this week. It really isn't happening is it.

Anyway, I texted her back. Said I understood. Asked if it would be okay to call her one evening. We'll see how that goes. I'm guessing the answer will probably be no.

2009-01-20T13:12:00.003Z

It's just after one o'clock, and I'm a little nervous. It's actually kind of unusual that I'm even up right now, but I had to take my car to be MOT'ed and serviced (I'm hoping it's not going to cost too much; my bank reserves are running a little low) at 8am, and since I actually, quite unusually, managed to get to sleep before 1.30am the previous night, I didn't really feel a need to go back to bed.

Anyway, I'm nervous. Yesterday, at around 12pm, I sent an email to this girl to make arrangements to meet tomorrow. As of this moment, I'm yet to receive a response. Of course, that could be for a number of reasons not the least of which could be the continual email failures I've been experiencing from Friday onwards. Typical, I try to make arrangements via email, something I rarely ever do, and it chooses to break down on me. So, she may have replied, but I just haven't received it. She may also not have actually picked up her email yet (apparently she can only grab her emails at lunch time, and there's limited access to the computers).

Of course, as I write this, I've just received an answer to my text (I sent one this morning, just in case my email didn't get to her at all). I'm meeting up with her after all. Panic over. Crisis averted.

I really must have more faith in myself.

Actually, I thought I'd most likely get a response between 1 and 2. If she hadn't seen the email yesterday, she could check for it at lunch time today (which I felt pretty sure she'd do before replying).

Now I have butterflies in my stomach. It has, after all, been quite some while since I've on a popper date.

And now she called. Wow, it really is all go here today.

I really do like her, so I hope things work out. That's all I'm going to say about it for now.

New policy

2009-01-14T20:35:00.003Z

I think I'm going to stop writing about people I know. If I don't, I'll just end up saying hurtful things, they'll see it and, quite rightly, want nothing to do with me.

If anyone has read my blog and been offended by anything I've written, then I'm truly sorry. If there's anything that you want me to take down I'll remove it.

I haven't been feeling great today, so I apologise for the down tone of the day's posts.

Mood Swing

2009-01-14T17:08:00.003Z

Some good news.

Back in August I went for a copywriting job. I didn't get the job (though I made it to the final three), but mention was made that another position might come up later. I thought I'd email them to to find out if that was now the case. As it turned out, it wasn't, but I was asked if I would like to do a bit of freelance writing for them. Of course I replied yes. Now I just have to wait and see what happens.

I woke up this morning feeling really depressed. Right now I'm feeling way more positive.

I feel so much better right now. About everything. I realised that I was overreacting before, but knowing that and being able to control it are two very different things.

In Shadows

2009-01-14T16:26:00.004Z

I think I may have to stop writing for a while. I think I could be upsetting people. I've been downright nasty with some of these posts. I'm showing up the horrible side of my nature and giving people all the reason they need to stop talking to me. Perhaps that's what I think I deserve anyway.

It's been an odd week. Many of my fears about pursuing the things I want have come true. A few posts ago I wrote about how I didn't want to really look for any kind of female companionship until I was really capable. However, an opportunity presented itself and I seized it. Now, given how angst ridden and pained I feel, I wonder whether I shouldn't have just walked away. It's proving to be more difficult than I'd hoped. It's not impossible; it's not even really hard. In fact some wouldn't even see an obstacle at all. I just can't seem to stop myself from wanting to cease my journey down a path that might lead to a little bit of happiness.

This thing, this depression, rules my life, whispers terrible things in my ear about how worthless I am. It tells me that the worst is inevitable and that the only way to avoid all the pain is to just give up. I don't want to let it win, but my ultimate defeat seems inevitable.

One day, through my vitriol and hateful words, I will push away everybody that matters to me. Then I'll be alone and I can finally have the freedom to surrender.

I don't want any of that of course; not deep down anyway. The part of me that exists without shadow looks only for a bright future. Sadly the clouds are gathering and, at least for now, everything remains in shade.

An Apology

2009-01-04T02:56:00.001Z

I think I was a bit hasty. Never let it be said that I can’t have my mind changed. You may remember that I made some, rather harsh comments about a friend’s girlfriend. Well, I take quite a lot of it back. I went out for drinks last night, and she was there. She was actually pretty nice. Quite funny even. I still think that she’s a little too controlling, but I guess that’s my friend’s problem, not mine. If he’s happy with her, who am I to argue.

I guess every time I meet somebody I evaluate them anew. I suppose that must be a good thing. I make judgements, but I don't think that I'm not judgemental. A first impression counts for something, I just won’t hold you to it. I think that makes sense.

That was a short post, so I’ll do another in a bit.

Happy New Year

2009-01-02T04:16:00.003Z

Well, for the first time in ages, New Years Eve wasn’t a massive let down. That said, I spent much of New Years Day in a virtual coma. My head was pounding and there was a sickly taste of stale alcohol in my mouth that wouldn’t go away, even after some vigorous tooth brushing. By the time I got back from Wimbledon it was about 4.30am. I’m pretty sure that I more of less just went straight to bed, though I think I may have made myself a Cheese toastie first. It’s all very hazy. I didn’t really drink an awful lot, but I completely failed to eat dinner before I left. A packet of crisps and a Wispa bar (alongside the sausage rolls provided by my gracious hosts) was clearly not enough to cushion my stomach for the alcoholic blow that was to follow.

After a few drinks (I do wish I’d brought a bottle myself. I felt a little bad about just drinking everybody else’s beer) we headed off to a pub, where we remained until some time after 12pm. After that, we headed back to the house, drank a little more, and played some Wii. I was absolutely hopeless at Mario Kart. Right now I’m going to blame it on the drunkenness. I wouldn’t have been so bad otherwise, surely?

I was woken up at around 3pm. Frankly, with all the sleep I’ve not been getting of late, the extra rest was pretty essential. That said, I still felt pretty tired for much of the day, and a splitting headache forced me back to my bed just a few hours later. When I did eventually get up again, it was only because I had to answer a phone call a little before 9pm. Language had actually deserted me by this point, so I was unable to engage in the usual witty repartee. All I wanted to do was lie down and go back to sleep.

So, finally 2008 is over. I feel extremely relieved. Of course, the change is really only notional. There’s no real difference between 31st December 08 and 1st January 09, in much the same way as there’s no difference between 30th December and 31st December. However, I did feel that 2008 was somewhat tainted and moving on to 2009 will allow me put everything behind me and start anew.

So, my objectives for the year are...

1, Get a great job. When people ask what I do, I want to be able to proudly tell them without any need for a disclaimer.

2, Move out. Being at home is one of the reasons why I’m so depressed. I’m an independent person and I just feel too restricted at home. The problem is, it’s a bit of a catch 22 situation. I feel like I won’t really be able to completely sort myself out until I’ve moved out. Unfortunately, I doubt I’ll be able to move out until I’ve sorted myself out. I’ll probably just have to, at first, get any old job, move out, and then work on getting to where I want to be. Anyway, once I’m out of home I think I’ll be able to start living the sort of life I really want to live. I started feeling so much better after having two weeks alone in my house, and I’ve just hated going backwards since then.

3, Get a girlfriend. I said in a previous post that I really didn’t want a girlfriend at the moment. Well, I know that at some point, when a few more years have passed, I’m going to lament my loneliness. I know that wanting to be alone is a symptom of my depression. When I can finally get past that I know I’ll think differently about the whole thing.

Again, moving out will probably help with all this. I suspect my self confidence will gain something of a boost once I’m not being constantly deflated by my Mum’s scathing comments and that will, no doubt, make me more capable of attracting somebody decent.

4, Write something worthwhile. Whether it’s a film, a novel, or maybe just an article, I need to write something proper that I can be proud of. I should really get something started pretty soon. I doubt that I’ll be able to get a job until at least a couple of weeks into the year, so I’ll need to use the time I have left in a constructive way. Last month I wrote more posts than at any other time since I started my blog. Writing the blog was intended as a way of getting me into the habit of writing regularly so that I could finally produce something good. I think it’s really about time I took the next step.

5, Sell all my unwanted things on eBay. I really need to get rid of a bunch of things that I just don’t need. For a start, it’ll make things a lot easier when I finally move out. It’ll also provide me with some more money, which I can then use to buy more crap that I don’t need. I’ve actually hesitated selling my stuff on eBay because I fear that the whole thing will be a complete waste of time and I’ll end up getting such a small amount of money that it won’t be worth the hassle. I need to at least try to shift it, no matter how distasteful I find the selling process.

I’m sure I’ll think of some more things as the year progresses, but for now, that’s pretty much all I want out of the next twelve months.
Was there anything good about 2008?

Oddly enough, in 2008 I managed to buy pretty much everything I wanted. From a new surround system to a netbook, I bought everything that my heat desired. The only major things I’d like to buy now are a Wii and a Freeview hard disc recorder, and I have little use for either until I leave home. The Wii because it's more fun with other people, and the Freeview recorder because I currently live in a digital TV blackspot and I can only pick up a bunch of BBC channels.Of course that just goes to show that the accumulation of possessions just doesn’t make me happy. Perhaps I should be grateful that it doesn’t. At least it shows that I’m not that shallow.

Last year I went away more frequently than in any other year. Dublin and the Norfolk broads were great, but Warsaw was awful and my time there set up my major depressive run. That said, I did learn from the experience, and I guess I found out a lot about myself. That it finally led to me seeking help for my depression can only be a good thing. That said, I’d rather not have been forced to endure the torment.

I’ve also had some good times with friends, but everything was marred by the cloud of depression that’s been hanging over me for the last twelve months. Things, I’m sure, will be better next year. I’ll make sure that they are.

Finally, I just wanted to thank everybody with whom I saw in the New Year. I had a great evening and I really appreciate being included. It’s nice to get 2009 off to such a good start. With any luck (not to mention a concerted effort from me) the rest of the year will be just as good.

I'd also like to wish a Happy New Year to everybody who reads my blog. Thanks for sticking with me. Hopefully I'll be able to keep you entertained througout 2009.

End of Days

2008-12-31T16:25:00.005Z

Well, this is bound to be my final post of 2008 and I for one am glad that the year is almost over. I’ve had some pretty shitty years of late, but this has been by far the worst. Crap job, crap holiday, depression, no job then boredom. Next year, I hope, is going to be a hell of a lot better.

I’m also hoping that, at some point during 2009, I might actually want a girlfriend. I’ve been single for quite some time now, and a few of my friends have asked me why. Or, as one friend put it “You’re nice bloke, you’re funny and you’re not hideously ugly, so why don’t you have a girlfriend?”In all truthfulness, I really haven’t wanted one. Initially, I just wanted to get other aspects of my life (career, better living arrangements) sorted out before I even went looking for a girlfriend. The problem is, I’ve taken so long getting nowhere with everything else and, subsequently, been single for so long, that I can’t see myself letting go of my independence (such as it is) and my individuality and become merely a constituent part of a couple. The thing is, I’m actually quite a solitary kind of person. As much as I enjoy being with other people, I’m sometimes glade of the fact that I can go back home and be on my own. Of course, I do feel lonely from time to time. Sometimes I long for something as simple as a hug, but for the most part, I’m okay by myself.

There are actually quite a lot of reasons why I should not even attempt to meet anyone right now.

The biggest reason is my depression. Until I can fully conquer that, I don’t feel like subjecting myself to anyone else. I simply can’t deal with unhappiness. I can’t deal with seeing the people I care for being upset. A fair few years ago, I went out with a girl who, in retrospect, it’s apparent also suffered from depression. Obviously that was a terrible combination.

Whenever she told me, in tears, about her problems and issues (and, given her rather traumatic past, those issues were myriad) all I could do was cry. Hopeless really. I couldn’t help myself though; it just upset me so much. I loved her dearly; I guess I just wasn’t the right guy at the right time. She broke up with me almost immediately after she returned from a three month trip to America. If only she’d done it before she left. Instead I was forced to, quite unnecessarily as it turns out, pine for her over the summer months. During that whole time, I didn’t look at anyone else. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for her. I often wonder whether, during those wasted months, I might have met someone else. Maybe the course of my life would have been completely changed?

Ideally I needed to be stronger. I’m just not there yet. Maybe when I am I’ll finally be in a position to seek out a girlfriend. Until then, I’ll remain alone.

I do actually have rather a lot of friends who have girlfriends that I can’t stand. One’s far too controlling. On my birthday she made damn sure my mate could drink no more than 4 pints of lager. I hate people who try to manipulate and control others. The other day she also threw a strop because my friend was unable to get her some brown bread. Apparently she wanted a couple of slices of toast for breakfast the next morning. The only place that sold it was too busy and buying it would have meant that he would be late to meet up with me and another friend. As it turned out, he was late anyway. I tried calling him on both his mobile and his home phone, but both were engaged. When I eventually bumped in to him, it turned out that he was on the phone to his girlfriend back home. By the looks of it she was unleashing upon him a torrent of abuse. The phone was pressed to his ear, but the expression o his face suggested that he wasn’t listening. I just couldn’t put up with that sort of behaviour. Honestly, why couldn’t the lazy, stroppy cow have got off her arse and bought it herself.

You’d think she must have some sort of redeeming characteristic, even if it’ merely superficial. After all, a lot of very attractive women don’t seem to bother developing a personality because the increasingly vacuous world at large lets them get by on looks alone. She is, most definitely, not one of these people. Frankly, she’s no looker. Facially, she’s fairly forgettable. As for her body, well I’m pretty sure she’s loaned it from one of the male attendees of a local primary school. She’s short, with a straight up and down figure; no curves whatsoever. I’m sorry to be so superficial, but I do think that, in order for a relationship to work, there must at least be some measure of physical attractiveness. I’d, be the last person to extol the virtues of puffed up, silicone enhanced glamour models. That, in no way conforms to my idea of beauty. But what does it say about you if your girlfriend has the outward appearance of a little boy?

I’ve developed a small distaste for one of my other friends girlfriend for a different reason altogether. Like the aforementioned girlfriend, her appearance is a bit of an issue. She’s not ugly, certainly; take a look at a photograph of her and you’ll be pleasantly surprised about how attractive she looks. When I say it’s her appearance that’s the problem I’m referring completely to the lack of it. I can only attest to how good looking she appears to be from pictures, because, for the entire time they’ve been going out, almost four years, none of my mates friends have actually met her.

Frankly, I think that’s appalling. To her credit though, she doesn’t seem to restrict my friend’s movements too much (though he did go into London for Saturday drinks a hell of a lot more before he met her. Okay, U-Turn approaching; she is a manipulative cow who can’t even sum up the decency to meet her boyfriend’s mates).

I’m being too hard of course. There are other mate’s girlfriends that I think are utterly brilliant and completely lovely. In actual fact, I'll be spending my New Years Eve with one such couple. Unfortunately, the good ones seem to be the exceptions that prove the rule.

I bring all this up because I have a horrid feeling that I might have upset one of my friends. This particular friend has just started online dating. This time, he seems to be having a great deal more luck. Apparently he’s in contact with quite a number of girls, and actually went out with one last night. After the date, he gave me a call to let me know how it went. Initially he seemed quite positive. Actually, right up until the end he seemed positive, but wasn't completely convinced.

During the course of our conversation he reeled of a list of her more deplorable attributes, most of which would have been deal breakers for me. Bunking off work (oh how I long to have an opportunity to pull a sicky. Even when I was terribly ill, I seldom called in sick), professing to hate the internet and computers. Also she lives alone in her own flat, but squanders her opportunity for total independence by relying on her mother to come round and clean her flat. She also takes her washing back home to be washed and ironed by her mother. Even if you ignore my ideological problem with parental dependency, surely it's way more hassle than just doing it yourself?

Obviously I'm going to address the point that irks me the most. How can you hate the internet? Let's put aside the very obvious paradox of her only being able to tell my friend how much she hates computers because they met through an ONLINE dating site. Without the internet and computers, much of modern life would be so different. How you hate something that gives you access to so much information and entertainment? I'll admit that, as with any medium for communication and transmission of information, 95% of the internet is total dross; a complete waste of time. However, surely it's got to be worth it for what remains. Remember, even if it is only 5% useful, that's still millions of terrabytes of worthwhile data.

Anyway, despite their differences, they talked, almost nonstop for 3hours, so I guess, at least on that level, as my friend was at pains to point out, it was a success. He said that he appreciated her honesty. To be frank, there’s a difference between honesty and shamelessness. I once worked (very briefly, I should add) with a guy who, on pretty much his first day of employment, admitted (or perhaps even boasted) that he had just finished a driving ban. He then went on to say that she had been banned for drink driving. I find that sort of thing deplorable. What kind of person wouldn’t hide such a despicable thing from someone they’ve just met?

He’ll be seeing her again apparently, but I can't help but feel that I dulled his enthusiasm for her with my negativity. If that's the case, then I'm sorry. It is, after all, up to him. Besides, who am I to condemn someone I haven't even met. All I have to go on is what he said about her. Maybe that's the point. Maybe I'm just interpreting his own viewpoint for him. Maybe I'm getting it all wrong.

Anyway, as I write I'm fiddling about with my laptop. See, life can be exciting and fulfilling without someone.

Why can't we all just get along?

2008-12-23T05:17:00.005Z

I got a wedding invite today. It served to show what a pedant I am. In life I hate uncertainty. I can’t gamble because of it. There may be a 99.9% chance that one thing will happen, but to my mind that doesn’t constitute a guarantee. I devote my time to contemplating the outcome of the 0.01% probability.

Ambiguity is fine in the right place. After all, art is supposed to be open to interpretation. Uncertainty, however, has no place in anything instructional, and a wedding invite certainly falls into that category. I spent ages trying to work out whether I’d been invited to the whole day or just the evening. It just wasn’t at all clear. I thought I was invited to everything, but I wasn’t 100% sure. It was only after conferring with other invitees that I finally reached a conclusion.

I’m actually rather fortunate to be suffering from the effects of anxiety at the moment. I suspect that the accompanying tightening of my throat is the only thing protecting my body from all the itinerant germs that are spreading throughout the house.

I haven’t suffered from anxiety for some months now. It’s odd that as soon as I decide not to be depressed and take action to address that issue, I start to suffer from the opposite problem. I suspect I’m feeling anxious about the difficulties that lie ahead. With depression, there is no progression, no future, only the pain of the present. With anxiety there is worry and fear about what may or may not come. Anxiety is panic of living, depression comforting embrace of death.

I started looking for a new job today, but there’s little about. I’ve maintained for a while that there is, in a lot of job advertisements, a number of subtle, almost clandestine hints that people who are not of ethnic minorities will have less chance of getting the job. At least that’s how I’d interpret the statement “We are particularly interested in applicant form ethnic minorities.”

Whether there is any actual discrimination going on (The term “positive discrimination” is, after all, an oxymoron. The job should go to whomever is most suited regardless of skin colour, sexuality or whatever) is, of course debatable. My point of view could just be a result of my own insecurities. It’s just my interpretation of a carelessly ambiguous statement. I am after all, a depressive, and I’m bound to think that the world is against me. I’m so frequently at odds with it I seldom see things any other way.

However, with the advert I stumbled upon last night, there was no room for interpretation. The advert was for a position at a company specialising in routing low cost calls to Poland. Now, I’ll leave the debate about European Union expansion into Eastern Europe for another time. All I will say is that there is clearly a market for the product that this company is peddling. What I am going to take issue with is the wording of the advert. Companies are, by law, forbidden from discriminating for any number of reasons (race, sexuality, disability) when it comes to recruiting for jobs. Apparently this company either don’t know of this law, or they simply don’t care. This advert demanded that any applicant for the position had to be Polish. This, I should add, is for a position at a company based in England. I could understand if the add said that any applicants had to be fluent Polish speakers; linguistic talents can, after all be attained, they are not proscribed by birth. But that wasn’t what this company said. How on earth can they get away with this?

I strongly believe that if decide to live in a different country you should embrace the native culture and values. This doesn’t mean giving up your own beliefs; that would be wrong as well as terribly boring. From my perspective, if I were to move to another country I'd make damn sure that I tried to learn their language and respect their traditions. I'd want to learn as much about their ways as I possibly could to prevent myself from unwittingly causing offence.Perhaps that's just me though. I do hold a great deal of stock in politeness, showing respect and behaving properly. As they say, "When in Rome."

As a child I remember lamenting my lack of diverse heritage. I distinctly remember being a little upset by my boring ancestry. Other cultures seemed so much more interesting by comparison. Their way’s fascinated me. Let's face it, Britain would be a more boring place without it’s many diverse cultures. However, it seems to me that things work best when other cultures become integrated in the main. They retain their unique identities whilst becoming a part of society as a whole. Problems arise when sections of the population segregate themselves from everyone else, bringing about a “them and us” mentality. If people don’t understand each other then there is little chance they’ll get along. For some reason, people become violently opposed to that which they believe to be different. I suppose there must be something tribal about our nature. We pin our colours to one team and support them above all others. We despise those whose loyalties lie elsewhere. We actively seek out those that are different so that we might have somebody to oppose, somebody to hate. However, if people of different backgrounds are given the chance to mix with one another they’ll realise that we’re far more alike than they may have first thought. If only we all understood each other a little better.

The point is, people should have a modicum of respect for the ways of their adoptive home and try to integrate themselves in to it. Prohibiting the indigenous inhabitants from taking a job with your country is hardly going to help promote understanding. More likely it will just incite hatred and resentment.

Poles already appear to have an image problem as far as a great number of British people are concerned. This sort of thing will only make it worse even amongst the more moderate or right minded members of the populace. After all, if somebody discriminates against you, it’s a hell of a lot easier to hate them right back.And remember, that cuts both ways.

Hang on a minute lads, I’ve got a great idea.

2008-12-20T04:59:00.002Z

That's it. Enough of this moroseness. These are the things I resolve to do.
Write more. It always makes me feel better, even if I'm just blogging. I do, however, need to write with more purpose. Perhaps I should actually get round to writing a film, a novel, or even a short story. I could even write up a few reviews or work on some of the article ideas I've had recently.

Exercise more. I need to lose weight and get fit. Besides, exercise releases endorphins and endorphins make you happy. Happiness combats depression. Depression stops me from doing things. Actually, it's a bit of a no-brainer really. The only difficulty is getting started on a routine that I can actually stick to.

Get out the house more. If I walk to wherever I’m going I can get exercise. If I take my laptop to wherever I’m going can write. This will kill two birds with one stone. Of course, this one is easier said than done. After all, it is very cold outside this time of year.

Less video games. I don’t actually play that often, but I tend to get upset when I lose. Unfortunately, since around 90% of all Halo 3 players are way better than me, I tend to lose a lot.

And finally, less depression. I’m going to try to think positively. Logically I know that I have a lot going for me, but self-doubt always creeps in, crippling me. I need to modify the way I think. Clearly, given the ineptitude and unwillingness of the NHS to provide me with the professional help that would greatly benefit me, I’m going to have to figure things out for myself.

That’s it. If I can do those things I can set myself up to get to where I want to be.

I want…

A new job that I can be proud of. I want to gladly tell people what I do, not hide it out of embarrassment.

Move out. Being at home is not good for me. A more positive environment will help me to achieve more.

Maybe meet someone. We’ll see about this. I’m still hoping that serendipity will take care of this one. Contrived and proactive measures like online dating clearly aren’t for me. I might, however, consider speed dating, though only after I have some sort of job (and it doesn’t have to be my dream job, just enough to give me a modicum of self esteem).

This time I have to do it. I have to actually take positive steps towards where I want to be. Staying here, where I am now, simply isn't an option.

And now, with all that decided, it's time for bed.

Incoherent and Inconsolable

2008-12-20T03:27:00.000Z

It’s not really been a very good week for me. It’s not like anything particularly bad has happened; I’ve just been completely out of sorts.

Aside from Tuesday, where I spent much of the afternoon fixing a friends computer, I did very little throughout the week, save for catching up on TV. Whilst, in the first few weeks after I left my job, I felt a hell of a lot better, of late my mood has started to decline rapidly. My sense of self worth is now practically non-existent, I’ve had suicidal thoughts (though I still don’t think I’d actually do it) and I’ve even considered self-harm. After all, I feel like I deserve it. I’d been thinking about an “It’s a wonderful life” style scenario where I never existed. However, unlike Jimmy Stewart’s character, I suspect that my non-existence would have had very little impact on everybody. In fact, I have a horrid feeling that people would have been better off.

Regardless, I have been doing some slightly more productive self-analysis and I’m pretty sure I know why my life is so crappy. I think that I revel in my misery and, when presented with the opportunity to mess things up, I’ll take it. I basically need protection from myself. Without some sort of encouragement to take the right path, I’ll always take the route that will give me the most trouble.
I have wondered, in the past I feel that, sometimes, people in my life that I rely upon have deliberately steered me into harms way, whilst others have stood by and watched the catastrophe ensue. Am I just a plaything? Wind me up and watch the chaos ensue.

I feel like I’m just a joke to some people. A figure of fun. Sub-human and unworthy of any real respect.

I’m lucky, I do have some extraordinarily good friends and for that I am eternally grateful. Unfortunately they can’t be there all the time; they have their own concerns and their own issues to deal with. To be honest, though, I wouldn’t ask for help. It’s not really my way. I wonder whether, deep down, I feel like I can only rely on myself. Actually, I doubt that. I think I don’t ask for help because I don’t think I’m worth saving. I hope that those who have offered me a kind ear do not think worse of themselves because I have not spoken to them. It’s not you, not at all. It’s me. I just won’t ask anyone.

I should add that I am writing some of this post after having literally no sleep last night. I’m a little concerned that, of late, things seem to be playing on my mind so much, and it only takes a relatively minor concern to keep me up. Actually, the other part of it is not actually wanting to go to sleep. I stayed up and watched shows on the BBC iPlayer. Having the ability to catch up on so much TV is fantastic. Unfortunately, last night, it proved to be so addictive that I didn’t want to sleep. I was tired, I just couldn’t bring myself to rest my head on the pillow and let nature take it’s course.

I sometimes just want to be on my own. Other times I feel lonely. Often I feel like I just need to feel what it’s like to be in close physical contact with another human being. Sometimes I just need a hug or some sort of physical sign that I am not unloved.
I hate some much about myself. I look at how badly time has affected me. I’m fat, balding and hideous looking. A friend saw a photograph of me from 10 years ago and said I looked so different. So different and, although he didn’t say it, so much worse. Because I do look so much worse. I keep telling myself that I’ll feel like I can possibly seek out a girlfriend once I get myself in better shape. Unfortunately, the exercise only lasts so long. After all, when I do it, it seems to have no impact whatsoever. I tell myself I’ll eat more healthily, buy really, what’s the point. Even if I do manage to miraculously transform my physical appearance, I’ll probably still feel the same. Besides, I’m a depressive with no job who lives at home with his Mum. What woman would even consider me to be a prospect.

Is any of that going to change? I’ve had jobs, but they’ve all made me miserable. None of them have paid enough to allow me to leave home. Is any of that going to change?

Home is awful. When I’m left alone I can just about cope with things, but that so rarely happens. Most of the time I’m subjected to a torrent of abuse, all of which reinforces my negative self-image. I think I’m worthless and so does everybody who’s around me for much of the day.

Whatever I do to help at home is never enough. There’s always some thing I’ve done wrong, or maybe even forgotten to do at all. I never get anything right. My family see me as being distinctly second-class. They’ll help each other, but whenever I need anything they’ll typically turn their backs.

I try to be good, but ultimately I don’t think I am. I’m just not a nice person. I’m not as good as I want to be. My grasp exceeded my reach, and it does so by quite some margin.

All of my friends are moving so far away from me. They almost all have a career, a partner, a home or maybe even all three. I wouldn’t wish that they didn’t have these things, but as their priorities change I can see them fade into the distance. One day they’ll be so far ahead of me that I won’t be able to reach them. Let’s face it; I have no real prospect of ever catching them up. I’ve tried, but I seem to fall at every hurdle. Things will just work out so much better for them that they will for me. I’m glad of that at least. I couldn’t stand them to suffer as I have. They deserve good things. Maybe I don’t.

I have to stop myself from reaching for the sharpest implement I can find and using it to carve into my flesh. I don’t know why exactly. Maybe I just need to feel some pain that’s real, and not just in my head. Something for show and tell. I hear that self harm releases endorphins. Maybe that’s why I want to do it. It’d certainly be better for my health than chocolate.

Every year, I used to wonder if the next will be any better. It never is. This one has been worse than many. I no longer wonder whether next year will be a good one. I know that it won’t.

I don’t know whether any of this has made sense. As much as I have enjoyed writing, deep down I know I’ll never make a career of it. I’m just not good enough. And even if I was, I just can’t seem to see the way forward. I can do a lot of things, but all of them only to a mediocre standard. I’m simply not good enough at any one thing to be able to make a career of it.

They fuck you up…

2008-12-19T11:59:00.000Z

I’ll tell you about my Dad. I’ll start by saying he wasn’t perfect; nobody is, of course, but he did help me a lot. Looking back, I can tell that he was, at least a little bit, aware of my depressive tendencies. I distinctly remember him trying to help me to deal with stress.

The problem is, I became too reliant on him as a crutch. I did nothing for myself. I still wasn’t doing anything for my own gratification; I did everything to please him.
He’d push me to do better, and without it, I doubt I’d have made it as far as university. I know my sister never really needed that sort of encouragement. Perhaps she feels left out, less loved because of it. But the point is, she didn’t need the attention. She might have wanted it; she might have felt that she’d missed out by not getting the same as I did, but, she wasn’t unloved, I’m sure of that. She just didn’t need as much care as me. She didn’t need as much guidance.

I don’t suppose it helped that he actively dissuaded me from trying to become a writer. Maybe that’s the reason I’m so reluctant. I know he wouldn’t want that. I can’t seem to escape his expectations, even though he’s been dead for a little over twelve years.

With him gone I had no reason to excel. So I didn’t. And I haven’t. I know he’d be terribly disappointed with me and that makes me feel so much worse.

I’d also say he’s responsible for some of my failings with women, especially early on, before he died. I have to be honest, I hadn’t even kissed a girl before went to university, just two weeks after my Father’s death. Before that, every time I betrayed an interest in the opposite sex or it was suggested that I might fancy a girl, my dad would tease me mercilessly. For someone of my disposition this was more than enough to discourage me from seeking out a girlfriend altogether. This is, of course, one of the reasons why, despite his efforts, I know that my Dad didn’t fully understand me.
I’m still, on occasion, a little shy when it comes to women. If I’m not in one of my more gregarious mood, I sometimes become unable to think of a single thing to say. A girl I liked from my previous work place once said that she thought I tried to hard. She’s right of course; when I put no effort in to it, when I don’t force it, everything comes very easily. Another girl even once said that I was charming. Again, I wasn’t trying then. Of course as soon as I realised that I was in the game, I defaulted to my usual tongue-tied self.

Ultimately, my problem is me. I often go for girls beyond my reach (wanting the things that I can’t have seems to be something of a theme for me). They’re always the ones who are unavailable, either because of some deep ceded psychological problem, or because they’re already attached. Either way, though, they’re unattainable. Of course then, with being no prospect that we would ever be together I have to simply rely on imagination and dream of what might be. Fantasy is, after all, so much more compelling than reality.

I wonder, if I desired that which I could actually have, I’d have be forced to deal with change. I’d be forced to deal with the possibility of happiness. I’m not scared by the prospect of being turned down by a girl, just by the idea that she might accept me.

I can’t really explain to my Mum how my depression makes me feel. Every time I touch upon the subject she’ll say something that makes me wish that I’d never brought it up. When I recently mentioned how badly I felt her response was to berate me. She said, “You’re making me worry about you and that’s going to make e mil. You don’t want me to get ill again do you?” Of course not, but that’s hardly a constructive thing to say is it? She seems to have a unique misunderstanding of me. She subjects me to all the negative things that a depressive should be spared. I’m growing fat on negativity (figuratively and literally), and she’s the one who’s doing most of the feeding.
Without a doubt, every day I spend in her presence makes me worse. I try my best to get by in this house, causing as little argument and conflict as possible. She complains that I don’t empty the rubbish; I do it every night now. Of course today, she filled up the bin during the course of one afternoon, before I’d even used it, and complained, once more, that she has to do everything. Why, she asked, can’t I just empty the bin. After all, I only empty it every evening. Of course, that’s not good enough. My mum has always been like this. Always moaning at me, always criticising me. Always interrupting me when I’m in the middle of something. I can’t concentrate when she’s in the house. When I wake, suddenly in the night, I often think I’ve heard her shriek my name (could I not be called something less screamable. Something with more than one syllable and no high pitched ending). Whatever I do to placate her, she always finds something else to moan about. There really is no reason why I should bother to put in any effort at all. However much I do, she always finds my efforts wanting in some way.

I wonder; is she like the cat that sits on the lap of the person who has a distaste or phobia of felines?

You seek attention from those who deny it from you. Is this the same? Is this her way of getting my attention? She complains so much that I don’t sit with her on evenings when I’m at home, preferring the solitude of my room. Of course when I do keep her company I’m subjected to abuse and criticism. It’s no wonder I stay in my room. She seems not to have grasped this simple concept.

I don’t feel welcome. She keeps threatening to throw me out. I know she doesn’t mean it, but I can’t help but feel insecure.

Ultimately, I know I’m a disappointment to my Dad. Worse, perhaps, I’m a disappointment to myself. I had such a brilliant idea of how my life would be by this age, but it just hasn’t happened. As much as I can attribute the blame to others, I know that I am, in the end, the one who is responsible for this shambolic existence of mine.

I’m going to try to get out more as soon as I can. I haven’t felt like leaving the house recently. When I have endured the outside would I’ve felt extremely uncomfortable. Hopefully I’ll be out tomorrow. Out with friends for drinks. With any luck I’ll be able to keep up a façade of happiness long enough for nobody to realise that I’m hiding my sadness behind a mask. Of course, pretend long enough and it ceases to be an act. It’s much easier to be happy when you’re actually having fun.

I’ll be back with my normal posting soon. Hopefully. By the way, this is often how I've felt when I've stopped writing in the past. Perhaps it will help if I write through it.

Dreams that probably won’t come true. Part 2

2008-12-11T04:21:00.002Z

So, finally back to that other dream I had last week.

Well this dream was a little peculiar. I suspect it’s come about as a result of my brain trying to resolve, or at least explore, some of the issues my conscious mind has been trying to repress. I’ll explain the dream and I’ll try to tell you what I think it all means.

Okay, so on to Sunday nights dream. This one really was kind of weird. You see, in this dream, it turned out that my sister had managed to buy up an eight year lease on an apartment building containing 300 flats. It subsequently turned out that, rather than getting this through some sort of shrewd investment as I had initially thought, my sister had got lucky and picked it up for £8.50. Perhaps this is my way of considering the credit crisis. I think, personally, that it comes from feeling that my sister somehow managed to get all the breaks, whilst I was left with sod all. Anyway, we make the journey down to the building, which is located in the E8 postcode. I looked up where E8 is, and apparently it’s Hackney. Why Hackney, I wonder. I guess I must have seen the postcode E8 on the news lately without realising it.

Then there was some bit where I went to a restaurant on the ground floor of the apartment block. My sister owned the lease on that too. I remember lots of people arriving whist I was, somehow, excluded. I think I may have been looking after everybody’s coats.

After that the action cuts to a flat within the building. It’s not my flat; oddly it’s one that’s being rented by one of my ex-girlfriends. This, in itself, is a little odd since this particular girlfriend recently got married to a man in his late 40s (she’s the same age as me) who has two teenage kids. To be honest, that whole situation surprised me a bit. This, after all, is the girl who said she never wanted kids. What the hell was she doing taking on responsibility for the children of some guy who’s only 18 years from collecting his pension. Technically, he’s old enough to be her dad. What the fuck does she see in him? Is it just security? Did she marry him because he looks after her and can provide her with the safety net to allow her to do whatever the hell she likes? In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s sleeping with somebody else behind his back. That is, after all, exactly what she did to me when we were gong out.

(It was at this point, in my original draft of this post that I went into a bit of a rant about this girl and attempted to deconstruct the whole relationship. I’ve omitted it here, simply for the sake of keeping the post a reasonable length. I’ll probably stick it all into a future post so you’ll probably have the opportunity to read it at a later date).

Anyway, lots of stuff happened and the party got gradually more and more debauched. It was then that I very clearly remember being on a sofa, fingering Lily Allen. Fuck knows why. I’ve never really had a particularly strong attraction to Ms Allen. Maybe, deep down what I really want to do, more than anything else is to digitally penetrate Lily Allen? It’s funny, I would have thought I’d have loftier goals than that. Like maybe aspiring to get a blowjob from Kate Nash. Actually, now that I think of it, the girl may just have looked and dressed a bit like Lily Allen. I wonder if that has any significance?

Later on, still at the party, I borrowed one of my ex’s DVDs. She had one of mine, my dream self was sure of it, so I felt fully justified. As sure as I was, I had to double check that I was right. I managed to find a DVD full of pirated films. The handwriting on it was mine. I left it where it lay and took my ex's DVD. My actions were vindicated.

After that, I left the party and ended up walking down the train line to god knows where. I got to the station, walked on to the platform (I think) and made my way to a bar. When I was in the bar I had an overwhelming feeling of uncoolness. Everyone around me seemed younger, cooler and better dressed than me. I felt like I was looking for somebody, but I don’t know who. I went up to the bar. Everybody around me was ordering weird, trendy cocktails. I looked around. Nobody had the kind of drinks you’d usually find in a pub. All the glasses were full of neon and pastel liquids stuffed to the gills with chunks of fruit and leafy stuff. All I wanted was a cold beer. I don’t think I ever got one though. The last thing I remember seeing is a large, cardboard box, cut in half diagonally. It was sitting on the bar. In side were uneven cut-outs displaying the names of a bunch of bands like Shed Seven. As nonsensical as it sounds, I, for some reason, thought that this was the mechanism for operating the jukebox.

Then I woke up, feeling quite depressed.

So, what does it all mean? At a guess, I’d say that I think my sister’s done better than me, but it’s mostly down to luck. I feel like my ex-girlfriend owes me something, but I’m not sure what. Finally, and this is a recurring theme, I don’t feel I’m young, cool and great anymore and I’m going nowhere.

Buggered if I can understand the Lily Allen stuff though.

Big Weekend. Part 2

2008-12-11T03:01:00.001Z

Often, when an evening comes to an end, I’m glad to get to be heading back home, but on Saturday night that wasn’t the case. When everybody wanted to leave, I would have been happy to stay a while longer. Honestly, most nights, by the time I’ve managed to get everyone to go, I’ve been bored for a fair while.

I’m really glad everything worked out so well. Typically, when my friend tries to organise these get-togethers, nobody turns up. This time, however, there were at lest fifteen people in attendance. The evening started in the basement bar of the Glasshouse Stores on Brewer Street in Soho. Mindful that the handful of people that started the evening would eventually become a huge group, we quickly took a place at the largest table in the pub. Unfortunately, within seconds we were ejected. Apparently the table had been reserved. Quite why a reserved notice couldn’t have been plonked down on the table before we sat down, just after 6pm when the basement bar opened, I don’t know. In retrospect, though, I’d say it all actually worked out for the best. If everybody had an easy, convenient place to sit, I doubt there would have been us much mixing and cross chatter.

After I’d eaten dinner, a not at all that bad for a pub Chicken Tikka Masala, I spent much of the time flitting about between groups. I don’t really understand why I felt so exuberant, I just was. When last orders were called, and it came time to find another venue in which to continue the revelries, I didn’t even consider going home. I just casually went along with everybody as they decamped to The Borderline. I say everybody, but the vast majority of the group were bound for the last train home; only six of us remained behind, destined to reach our journeys end on a night bus.
The Borderline was, as ever, great. I’ve always been a fan of music of the indie rock persuasion and, since that’s all they play at The Borderline, I was well catered for. I can’t say exactly when we left, I hadn’t checked my watch all evening. What I do know is that I could quite happily have stayed for much longer.

Often, when an evening comes to an end, I’m glad to get to be heading back home, but on Saturday night that wasn’t the case. Honestly, most nights, by the time I’ve managed to get everyone to go, I’ve been bored for a fair while.

I really do find it hard to explain my good mood. For some inexplicable reason, throughout the entire evening I’d felt overwhelmed by a feeling of euphoria. I’d talked to random people at the bar, chatted away happily to friends and acquaintances. It sounds strange to say, but I was just unaccountably happy.

My good cheer even saw me through a trip to the Strand branch of McDonalds. Although I refused to eat there (after a certain time they will only serve meals. Pointless and exploitative when I, and I’m sure many others, would only require a burger) I did want to make use of their toilet facilities. Yet more talking to strangers ensued. Whilst waiting in the queue for the toilet I got chatting to a girl who was clearly being mocked for her burgerlessness by her Big Mac chomping housemate. My theory about McDonalds exploiting drunken customers by only serving means only fell on quite hostile ground, but after a while, I finally managed to get a laugh or two out of the girl.

Of course, that’s how I felt I’d come across. In actual fact I may have seemed like a blithering idiot. The girl from the McDonalds toilet thought so, at least initially. It’s so hard for me to tell. I mean, I could have just imagined all the good stuff.

Anyway, whilst I was on top, I felt really good. Of course, it wasn’t to last. The manic phase would, as was always the case, be followed by a massive come down. This time, I would have to say, it was a hell of a lot worse and longer lasting than usual. My evening on high, as it turns out would cost me a couple of days in the doldrums. It all started when I left everybody else behind so as I could find my nightbus. Typically, and this seemed to be the public transport trend for the evening, I managed to miss the bus by a few seconds. One day I really must try and remember exactly where it is that I catch a Harrow bound nightbus. Having to checks practically all the routes posted by every bus stop around Trafalgar Square is a bit of a bind. Usually, when I get the nightbus back, I head straight upstairs. This time however, I took a seat downstairs, just behind the exit doors. Unfortunately my inferior vantage point was made worse by the dirt caked across the window next to me

So I spent the trip back staring despondently out of the grime stained window, desperately trying to work out if the bus really was going in the right direction (I don’t trust night bus drivers. Not after the night when I ended up having to walk all the way home from Sudbury one night despite the driver’s insistence that the bus was bound for Harrow). I was distracted only by a need to curse the crapness of my new iPod remote. This particular one had cost £30 but was probably more useless than the cheap eBay crap I’d just had to send back. And so it was from Harrow Bus Station that I was forced to walk home with only the mildly distorted music coming from my iPod to keep me company throughout the freezing cold night. Actually, for the sake of accuracy, I should say that I pressed the button to get off right before Harrow Bus Station (there really are far to many stops on most bus routes if you ask me). Despite the fact that I only had to get up from a seat right behind the door, the bus driver still managed to shut it in my face before I exited. I really do hate those guys. Would it be terribly paranoid of me to say that I’m sure they all have it in for me?
I went though my front door mere moments after four and prepared a snack of cheese toasted on baguette (lovely with some ketchup on top) to help soothe me though the hangover that had already started before the night had come to an end.

I spent much of Sunday in bed, not arising until after 2pm and then returning to bed once more at 6.30. Today I fared little better. I had no desire to leave the house, but if I wanted to claim the money back for my defective iPod remote I would, by necessity, have to make a trip to Watford. Of course I could have simply gone to Harrow Town Centre, but that place would have just depressed me even further. Invariably, what with it being Christmas, there would be even more Charity collectors littering the streets, and I was in no mood to deal with any of them, at least not with any civility. Fortunately, HMV accepted the remote back with no trouble whatsoever. On the way back I picked up some essential supplies from Tesco (Doritos, Pringles and yet more Pepsi Max), availed myself of their cheap petrol made even cheaper by a voucher good for a 5p per litre discount, and headed back home.

In the last few days I’ve been sometimes up and sometimes down. Today I’ve mostly been fine. Yesterday I was fine whilst I was helping my friend to fix his PC (and simultaneously realising how much better Macs are, but that’s for another post), but after he left I felt just as bad as ever.

By the way, as a postscript to this, I do think I may have, on Saturday, said something to one of my friends that, due to my gabbery, inarticulate nature at the time, may have been easy to misinterpret. I will say right now, I meant no real offence, that is, if any was caused.

Big Weekend Part 1

2008-12-09T05:44:00.002Z

Well I didn’t manage to get anything written on Sunday. I’ll go in to why a little bit later. Let’s just say I was pretty busy this weekend. My whistle-stop tour of Eastbourne on Friday was quite exhausting. I’d actually intended to take my laptop along so that I could write on the train, and then head back home the next day. However, given that I was definitely going to be having a big night on Saturday, I realised that would be a terrible idea. In other words, I acknowledge the fact that I’m getting older now and probably can’t handle the pace. Or it could just be that I didn’t want to spend the night (alone, I should add) in a bed that wasn’t my own.

After managing to miss both my trains by mere seconds, I arrived in Eastbourne a little latter that I’d hoped, at 4.45pm. Actually, to be completely accurate, I made it on time for the second one, but was told, all too harshly by some Hitleresqe station attendant, that I couldn’t board. After he made his fascistic declaration, there was then at least a 20 second delay before the train left the platform. These little bastards do like to abuse the little bit of power they have. I would have actually ignored him had I not been convinced that the train door wouldn’t have opened if I’d pressed the open/close button. Next time that happens I’ll simply pay the little prick no attention whatsoever. Rude fucker. Anyway, after a 30 minute wait, the next train bound for Eastbourne set off.

I entertained myself on the journey by watching the quite excellent Nathan Barley on my iPod. I’m not sure why, but it all seemed to resonate far more this time round than it did on first viewing. Perhaps, I didn’t pay quite as much attention to the show as I should have. I suspect, however, that it’s more likely that, in the intervening years since first watching it, I’ve simply become more jaded and cynical and, as such, I’m more in tune with the tone of the whole thing.

A little way in to episode four, the train finally pulled in to Eastbourne. Obviously I didn’t see an awful lot of the town, what with it being dark, but I was quite surprised by the comparative lack of pubs. After my friend collected me from the station, I remember seeing only one other pub on the way to our final destination, which must have been a good 750m from our starting point.

The whole idea of the trip to Eastbourne was to help celebrate my friend’s birthday. As it turned out it wasn’t actually his birthday until two weeks later. They’d simply decided to celebrate it that Friday due to the fact that the next Friday was his work’s Christmas dinner and, on the one after that, he’d be visiting his parents in Ireland. In many ways I could have done without going all the way down there on that particular weekend given how busy I would be the following day. Still, in many ways, finding out that it wasn’t actually his birthday came as something of a relief. I’d felt sure that Facebook, MS Outlook or my phone would have reminded me of my friends birthday (one or all three usually did with practically everyone else’s), so it was good to know that my usual technological support system hadn’t actually fallen apart.

Early on, the discussion concentrated on what everybody had ordered for their Christmas dinner and I worried that, for the whole evening, I would be subjected to the esotericism of work based conversation. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case and, as the alcohol flowed, the evening gradually became more enjoyable, especially after I stumbled upon a little more common ground.

That said, by 9.15pm, when I had to leave to get my train back, I was pretty much ok with going home. I suspect I didn’t make a great impression on my friend’s colleagues (most of my jocular comments were greeted only by perplexed gazes), but then again, I suspect that I probably won’t end up seeing them again anyway. I get the feeling that staff are quite transient. Still, it was good to see my mate again. It’s a shame we don’t get the opportunity to meet up more often really.

After a bunch of delays on the tube, I made it back by 1ish and set my alarm for 12pm. I was knackered, but I had to get up in time to collect my Crumpler Crippy Duck laptop messenger bag that the postman had, apparently, tried to deliver the day before. He’s left a card saying that nobody had been in when he called, but since the house had been occupied for the whole of Friday morning, I suspect that he simply hadn’t been able to sum up the requisite intellectual prowess to ring the doorbell and let his presence be known. They do seem to do that a lot actually. It’s not as if the doorbell is cunningly concealed. It’s quite obvious; all you have to do is look.

So, that’s Friday out the way. I think I’ll save Saturday's events for the next post.

Normal service will resume shortly

2008-12-05T03:53:00.004Z

I'm afraid there's no proper blog entry today, so I'll have to break my promise to tell you more about my strange dreams. I was trying to finish off a post, but, for some reason, I was finding it incredibly difficult. Anyway, the writing then lead of onto an unexpected tangent and I've ended up typing reams of stuff about something totally unrelated. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a mess at the moment, which is why I'm not publishing it tonight. Once I've knocked it all in to shape I'll stick it on the blog for your reading pleasure. Rest assured though, I'll definitely be back with something after the weekend.

The next couple of days are going to be pretty hectic for me, which is why I won't have time to post anything until Sunday at the earliest. Tomorrow (Friday), I'm off to Eastbourne for a friend’s birthday. I'll be staying over for the night and then, rushing straight back home the next day. From there I'll be meeting up with a whole bunch of friends for a night of yet more drinking. Actually, I may not post on Sunday after all since there's a very real possibility that, by that time, I'll be dead.

I'm determined not to let this blog die, so I do intend to keep posting regularly, every day if I can, mortality permitting.

I'll give you a little update on the highlights of my boring arse life before I go.

The replacement iPod remote I ordered came through. That didn't work either, so I've sent it back for a refund. It looks like there's definitely some sort of compatibility issue with the iPod Touch, something that was confirmed by the message I got from the original seller. Maybe I’m not cursed after all.

Unfortunately, that discovery left me with only one option. If I wanted to have control over my iPod whilst it resided safely in my pocket, I'd have to buy something more expensive. One short trip to the Watford Branch of HMV and £29.99 later and I was the proud owner of a Gear4 Blueye.

The Blueye does seem pretty good. It has an FM radio and bluetooth connectivity, effectively allowing you to use your ipod as a bluetooth headset for you phone. I'll probably never use the radio (on the iPod Touch there's no on screen indication of what station your listening to), though I may, at some point, make use of the bluetooth headset functionality. I've missed a hell of a lot of phone calls because I've been listening to my iPod whilst I've been walking down the street, an act which, in itself, tends to negate the phones vibration alert. With this, the phone call is channelled through to my iPod headphones, the music stops and I can talk to whoever is on the other end of the line via the remote's built in microphone. In other words, it works exactly like any other bluetooth headset.

It's all very nice, of course, but I cant help thinking that I would have rather stuck with spending only £3.99 for basic remote functionality, which was, after all, the only thing I really needed.

On the plus side, last night I managed to win the auction (though there was no other competition) for the laptop bag I wanted. It's made by a company called Crumpler who seem to give all their bags the most bizarre name. The particular bag I won is a vertical messenger bag called the "Crippy Duck". It's pretty big, and it should be large enough to hold a 17" laptop, which will come in handy because it'll hold the 16.4" Sony laptop that I may pick up once I finally get fed up with my trusty Samsung X15. However, the most important thing is that it should be large enough to act as a carry on bag for when I go away next year. I intend to stick another, smaller messenger bag inside of that (I've currently got my eye on an auction for another Crumpler bag, The Ed McBain's Lovechild) containing all my electronic goodies. That I'll use as my day bag for when I'm walking around seeing the sites or hanging out in cafes and bars.

Just in case you're interested my Crippy Duck cost £13.99 and comes in a fetching combo of navy blue and silver. The seller posted the bag the day after the auction finished, so hopefully I should be taking delivery of it within the next couple of days.

Well, that ended up being quite a long post after all that. It wasn’t particularly interesting, but at least it was something.

Dreams that almost certainly won’t come true. Part 1

2008-12-04T04:15:00.001Z

Wait, I’ve just thought of something vaguely interesting. My dreams seem to be having a profound effect on me recently. I’m not sure If I’ve mentioned this already. If I have, here’s a recap. The unfortunate problem with dreams is that as time passes, they gradually fade from your memory. Lat week I had a dream that left me completely stressed out when I woke up. Yet, I can’t recall a single thing that happened in it.

Another time I had a sort of Science-fictiony dream. The details are a little hazy, but I do remember that I was in one of a series of futuristic-style houses on a long stretch of quite white-sanded beach. The decoration was kind of minimalistic. Everything was gleaming white and pristine, kind of like a combination of the bridge of the Enterprise in the new Star Trek film (I had just seen the new trailer the night before, so I guess that could have been an influence) and an Apple store. I actually thought it all looked pretty nice. Kind of like my ideal combination of technology and nature. For some reason I’ve always wanted to live by water. I have no real idea why. It’s not like I have any childhood memories of near sea dwelling. The closest I’ve ever got to living by a sea or river was when I had my final house in Staines, and I was at least 300 meters away from the banks of the Thames. Maybe it’s some sort of genetic memory or a shared consciousness sort of thing. I am, after all, English, and we are a seafaring nation. Nope, that just sounds like bollocks.

Anyway, that’s just drivel. I’ll get back to the dream. So, I’m sitting happily in my beachfront iHome, when all of a sudden, the strange plain white globe like object in my living room rose up in to the air. At this point I’m a little hazy. I seem to remember it glowing with a purple light and emitting some sort of orange gas. I opened the sliding doors onto the beach and walked outside. It soon became obvious that the same thing had happened to everybody else on the beech. The coastline was gradually becoming enveloped by this strange orange mist. It was then that a girl with short, blonde hair approached me. I think it was the Speedster girl from the TV show Heroes (I’d watched an episode the previous night), though it could have been someone else. I really don’t know. Anyway, we had some sort of conversation (I think it was about what was going on. That would be the obvious thing I guess. After all, the weird spherical things in your living room don’t turn purple and emit an orange gaseous substance every day). She kissed me and left. Then I woke up. Jesus, it seems like every time I write “and then she kissed me” it’s always followed by “then I woke up”. I must sort my life out. Ideally I’d like to reverse the order of those two sentences. Yeah, that would work for me.

I’ll talk about the dream I had a few nights ago in my next post.

Bad Karma?

2008-12-03T04:19:00.002Z

No sex, but yet more electrical dysfunction. Things are kind of getting ridiculous now. Of the last four electrical items I’ve bought, I’ve had some sort of problem with three of them. Here’s an account of today’s misfortune. After getting fed up with having to keep taking my iPod Touch out of my pocket every time I wanted to operate it, I finally splashed out £3.99 on a remote control from eBay. Perhaps, given the price, I should have expected it, but the remote control didn’t work. Actually, I suspect that the idiocy of the eBay seller had something to do with why it didn’t work. The genius had decided that the ideal packaging for a delicate electrical item would be a single letter envelope. No padding, no jiffy bag, just an envelope. There really are a lot of morons out there. This is actually the second time someone on eBay has tried to send me something in an envelope. The first time all I got was an envelope with an invoice inside. The large tear up the side of the envelope had taken care of the mp3 player battery I’d ordered. At least the guy sent me another one. Of course, that one came in an envelope too, but at least he’d reinforced the sides with sellotape. Seriously, what is wrong with people? Has there been a worldwide shortage of common sense? Maybe I should just stop ordering stuff from eBay? That would definitely be the sensible thing to do. Of course I won’t. My misplaced optimism will make sure of that.

Anyway, I contacted the seller and, because he doesn’t have a replacement, he’s asked me to send it back to him. Obviously that's a bit of a pain in the arse. I’ve ordered an identical one from another eBay seller, so hopefully that’ll work out better. I’m actually also on the lookout for a funky laptop messenger bag. I’m going to try to get a smallish one (for day to day travel with my mini-laptop) and a largish one that I can use both for my bigger laptop and as hand luggage for when I go travelling. Actually, it’s looking more and more likely that I’ll be going travelling to America next year. One of the major things that stopped me from doing it this year was money. Next year, I’ll hopefully have a job. Hopefully. You really can’t guarantee anything with me. Anyway, I have some friends who have, for various reasons, expressed an interest in heading out there next year. I did kind of want to do the trip on my own, but the one thing that held me back was the expense. A single traveller pretty much pays twice as much whenever he lays his head down on a hotel pillow. With two people per room, the cost is essentially halved. I’ll go in to more detail about this some other time, but only if it looks like it’s going to work out. Basically one of my friends wants to do the New York Marathon next November. A few others might want to give it a go too. Obviously I wound never do something so crazy. I’d probably die if I tried. No, instead, I’ll just avail myself of the opportunity to board with someone. After that, another friend has suggested travelling to Boston and Niagara Falls. That would more or less mean that I’d be covering much the same ground as I would have done on this years abortive trip.

Anyway, a pretty short post today. Then again, there’s only so much you can write about when the only time you’ve left the house is to get your weekly shopping. For anybody who’s interested, I bought some milk, A large packet of Hot Chilli Doritos, 2x 2litre bottles of Pepsi Max, Orange Juice, bread (Hovis, medium sliced), 2x fresh Tescos Italian Margarita pizzas, Spaghetti in Tomato Sauce and some shower gel.

I really do have to come up with something better to write tomorrow, because this post seemed kind of desperate.

Welcome to the Cult of Steve

2008-12-02T04:40:00.003Z

I’m still a little astonished that I found this eMac just sitting by the road. It does kind of even out things as far as my electrical yos and woes tally goes. Yes, I had to spend out £81 on fixing my ailing laptop, but I have, over the course of roughly the same time period, managed to get a complete (save for mouse and keyboard) Mac. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that buying an iPod had almost turned me into a Macolyte (do you see what I did there. It’s a bit of a portmanteau, blending together Mac and acolyte. See, I can even do linguistic freestyling. I got the mad skills). Well, this eMac is making a pretty compelling argument to switch teams. It definitely looks a hell of a lot prettier on my desk than my old PC did, especially since I finally took delivery of my white Apple keyboard. The reason it took a whole week to arrive was that the seller didn’t bother to post the thing until Friday. Any time I’ve ever sold anything on eBay I’ve always made sure I posted it as soon as possible. I really don’t understand how somebody could put off doing it for almost a week. Anyway, so that was problem no. 1 with my apple keyboard. Problem no. 2 was potentially more serious. It had a wonky spacebar. I’ve started to get the impression that somebody up there wantsmetotypeeverythinglikethisforeverandever. Fortunately, I completely failed to remember that I’d pledged never to fiddle with things ever again, and promptly set about trying to rectify the problem. As luck would have it, the base of this particular type of apple keyboard is completely transparent, so I was able to actually see what the problem was before I started ripping keys off. Fortunately, this time, I didn’t completely screw things up, so I’m now the proud owner of a new and fully functional Apple keyboard. The thing is, despite the problems I had with delivery delays and disrepair, I was still pretty loathe to give the seller bad feedback. Why? Why could this possibly be? Essentially I got bad service. It took an age to get to me and was kind of broken when it finally made it here. The thing is, I kept thinking of perfectly valid reasons for the problems. What if there was some sort of family emergency that prevented the guy from taking the package to the post office? Besides, when they finally did send the keyboard it went first class, not second class as they’d said in the listing. Subsequently the postage actually cost more that they’d charged (and how often does that happen with eBay stuff). Of course, if they’d posted it several days earlier that wouldn’t have happened, but then I guess t hat wouldn’t have been possible owing to the dead Grandmother (I imagine the family emergency would probably involve the death of an elderly relative. After all, old people seem to die all the time). And as for the (easily repairable) damage; wasn’t it quite likely that the retaining clip for the space bar had come away during transit?

Actually, I haven’t I haven’t dispensed with my PC altogether. It’s still sitting in the integrated PC tower cubby hole on my desk. I’ve simply removed the old, beige monitor and swapped it over for the shiny white eMac. After that I hooked up the PC to my HD telly so that I can use it for downloads and streaming pictures from iPlayer and 4 on demand. Pretty neat huh? Or maybe it’s just a way for me to earn more geek points?

The place where I ordered the laptop keyboard was actually pretty efficient. At least that’s what I thought when the postman handed me a package on Thursday morning. That’s fast work considering the fact that I only ordered it late on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, once I opened the package my glee turned in to disappointment. Whilst the keyboard inside looked just about right, when I tried to fix it into place, it became obvious that they’d set the wrong one. None of the screw hole matched, so it was going to have to go back. I made a cal to the spare parts company and the guy on the other end of the line asked me to send back the incorrect keyboard and email him with some pictures of the one I needed, just to make sure they got it right this time. You’d think that would be easy. After all, all I’d have to do was take a picture with my camera phone, send it to my mini-laptop via Bluetooth, attach it to the email and I’d be done. You’d think that, (I know I did) but then you (and I) would be completely wrong. First off, for some reason, the phone wouldn’t connect to the laptop. I’m going to blame the phone for this. You’ll see why later. After that I tried to whip out the memory card and transfer the file through the memory card slot. Of course I couldn’t do that because I’d been forced to save the pictures onto the phone memory because the memory card was full. I’d actually bought a 4gb SD card, but that seemed to cause my increasingly pedantic phone to crap out, so I was forced to go back to using the 512mb card that came with it. Anyway, I erased some pictures, transferred the photos over to the memory card, shoved the memory card into the laptop, attached the pictures to an email, sent the email, realised that I didn’t have the right email address, called the company back, got the address, resent the email (in which I requested that thy reimburse me for the postage costs. So far they haven’t) and waited. In other words, it was a bit of a pain. After that, I headed off to the post office and handed my package to the typically incompetent staff who completely ignored my request to send it by recorded delivery. Anyway, once I’d finally sorted everything out I walked ou the pot office and set off home. Then I walked right back the way I’d come and walked into the shop neighbouring the post office. I’d pretty much needed a haircut for a fair few weeks now, but since I could never seem to find the time to make it to the barbers (when you have virtually limitless time you spend pretty much all of it doing very little that’s actually constructive) I hadn’t bothered. Now, since I was right outside, I figured that I might as well get a haircut. I think I’m actually starting to develop a pathological fear of haircuts. You’d probably have the same issue too if, every morning when you woke up, you left half your hair on your pillow. The truth is though, and this is going to sound kind of bizarre, I tend to look less bald once they lop off some of my hair. I guess it’s because the weight of the long hair, working in unison with the laws of physics, pulls down the hair from my scalp and opens up a gaping chasm of baldness. Short hair has more of a tendency to lie flat and patch up the gaps. Still, despite that, I’m still quite loath to do it. I just like having long hair. That’s why my Xbox Avatar still has the same haircut I had circa 1999.

On the plus side, they sent out the correct keyboard straight away, and it arrived on Saturday along with the Apple keyboard. No postage refund though, and I’m not sure I can be bothered to hassle them about it. After all, it was only £2.10. Is it really worth the effort? Isn’t my time more valuable than that? That was supposed to be a rhetorical question by the way. Even still I suspect that the answer would be no, my time really isn’t that valulable.

Some way back a couple of paragraphs ago, I bitched a little bit about my current mobile phone, the Sony Ericsson K850i. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve been all that happy with it. In the past I’ve been a bit fan of Sony Ericsson. My last five phones have been made by those guys and each model has been better and more useable than the last. That is, until I got the K850i. On paper, it seems great. Five megapixel camera, SD memory card slot (the old ones would only take the more expensive memory stick cards. The K850i does both), xenon flash…. the list of great features just goes on and on. Unfortunately, the phone is way less than the sum of its parts. Every time I take a close up picture requiring flash, the phone does one of two things. Either the flash isn’t potent enough and all I get is a series of indistinct, silhouette-ish blurs or the flash goes crazy and everyone’s facial features are wiped out by the blinding light. This didn’t happen with my old K800 with its supposedly inferior 3.2 Megapixel camera. Not ever. After a while I noticed a more serious issue. I use my phone as an alarm clock, so it’s kind of vital that it stays functional overnight. Overnight, the phone shut itself off completely. My alarm didn’t go off. Fortunately, through some perversion of nature, I’d got used to waking up in the morning (I’d much rather wait until the afternoon. Midday is a much more civilised hour and I’ll do whatever it takes to get businesses worldwide to recognise this fact), so after a bit of a rush, I managed to make it in to work on time (well, as on time as I ever was). The problem is, the phone keeps shutting itself down at random times. Now, I’m famed for always being contactable through my mobile. The only time I usually won’t answer the phone is when I’m on the tube, and simply because I can’t due to the lack of reception (I do hope they get that sorted out soon. I mean, if the French can do it…) or engaged in an intimate situation (there was a time when that meant I’d be having sex. Ah, halcyon days. Now it just means I’m in the shower or on the bog. Oh, or I could be engaging in some personal intimacy, if you get my meaning). Anyway, if none of that was going on, I’d answer the phone. Now, with this stupid mobile, I could be out of contact at any random time. It’s maddening. It’s completely spoiling my reputation for easy contactability. On the plus side, since I currently don’t have a job, I don’t have to get up in the morning, so there’s no need to worry about the alarm any more.
I’m eligible for an upgrade in February, so at least I’ll be able to pick out a replacement pretty soon.

I’d been thinking about maybe getting an LG Renoir (touchscreen, 8mp camera, gps. On paper it sounds great). Actually, I’ve been so impressed with my iPod Touch that I’m giving some thought to getting an iPhone, despite the woefully inadequate camera and the extortionate tariff (to get anything worthwhile you’ve got to sign up to an 18 month contract costing £35 a month). Under no circumstances would it be vaguely sensible to get another Sony Ericsson phone. Not after I was so badly let down by my current one. I’d have to be completely mad to do it.

Anyway, I’ve weighed up the options, done some extensive research and I think I’ve decided to go for the C905. If you’re curious about what that’s like, you should be able to find it on the Sony Ericsson website.

Oh, and just as a postscript to this… post, my life will get more interesting (hopefully) so with any luck my future entries wont focus so much on the mundane tedium of my existence. Personally I’m hoping to add a little bit more sex in the future.

No Input

2008-11-27T02:37:00.002Z

Well, after a little experimental surgery I’ve managed to kill my laptop again. Just a couple of weeks ago I had to wrench out a defective hard drive which had, through no fault of my own, decided to make the most horrendous chugging noises whilst accessing. After that, it began to take ages to actually do anything. Soon after that, it would only allow me to access my data if I pushed hard on the laptops casing, just above the location of the hard disc. I spent 45 minutes pressing down on the damn thing whilst all my precious data was siphoned of the ailing disc on to my external hard drive. A quick trip to PC Word later and I was £41 lighter of pocket, but 160gb up on hard drive capacity. Still at least that allowed me to kill another long, boring day whilst I laboriously restored my previous hard drives contents to the new unit. Although the whole exercise cost me money, I didn’t mind having to do it. Since I’d been using my laptop for iTunes, 40gb really wasn’t cutting it anyway, so an upgrade was welcome.

However, having to spend out yet another £40 on a machine that’s almost four years old is kind of annoying. So, how did that happen? Last night, I managed to spill a tiny bit of orange juice on my laptop’s keyboard. I got to it pretty fast, tipped the machine upside down and let it drain. All seemed well. That is until this morning, when I tried to use it again. The space bar was a little sticky. By the way, when I say, a little, I really do mean a little; it was hardly a problem, but it was hardly a problem that I simply had to solve. So, I clipped the space bar off, cleaned it out a little and attempted to fix it back on. Four hours later, I finally threw in the towel and ordered a replacement keyboard.

I really should know better. Any time I try to fix a minor and fairly inconsequential problem I always end up making it worse.

Actually, in an attempt to work out what was doing wrong, I flipped off the space bar on my old and not particularly functional Sony Vaio laptop. I had it clipped off and back on again within 10 seconds. For some reason, the mechanism on my Samsung keyboard is just way more complicated. In other words, I wasn’t being overtly dumb when I expected to be able to fix it all by myself. After all, I’d fixed loads of desktop keyboards. Of course I figured it might be harder with a laptop, but I never realised Samsung had constructed their keyboard in such a way as to make it completely impossible.

My advice; if you have a Samsung laptop, never, ever try to take the keys off. It will only cause you pain, followed by a wasted afternoon (during which you may end up sticking your fingers together with super glue) and then, the worst blow of all,having to resort to spending money to solve the problem.

Tragically, I now suspect that the stickiness would have gone away after a few weeks. Still, I’ll use it as an excuse to cut down on the booze. I only need to drop two pints a week for 6 weeks to pay for the keyboard. Failing that, I could just limit myself to drinking at Sam Smiths pubs, the only pub chain in London where you can pick up a round for four people and still have change from a tenner.

Anyway, not everything has been bad lately. On the plus side I’m now typing this using my newly recovered eMac. Unfortunately, until the genuine Apple keyboard that I ordered from eBay arrives, I’m having to type on my old black Logitech so-called “Media Elite” keyboard. It’s quite frankly awful. There’s just something slightly out of line with the key placements, which means I usually end up catching my finger on the neighbouring key to the one I actually want to press. Sometimes keys don’t even register at all. It’s quite frankly awful. My word page is covered in red squiggles indicating all the typos that have been forced upon me by this crappy keyboard. Also, for some reason it absolutely refuses to type an upper case “o”. I’ve no idea why that could be.

Ah, keyboards; the route to so much pleasure, but the cause of so much pain.
This week I’ve come to a fantastic realisation. I’ve sort of stumbled across a way of forcing myself write. When I’ve tried to write I usually sit on my bed with my laptop. Very seldom does any writing actually emerge. Usually I just waste time on the internet. Laptops are great, you can use them all over the house. You can write anywhere, but for some reason I don’t. So, I asked myself, how do I ensure that I’ll actually do some work. Apparently the answer lies with sitting at a desk. Whenever I take my mini laptop out with me and sit at a desk, I write. So now, whenever I’m in the house and I feel like I should be writing, instead of lunging about on my bed with my laptop, I’ll sit at my desk in from of my Mac. Unfortunately, for now, that means typing this blog entry on my soon to be replaced demon keyboard. Everything I type is a mess, but I am at least doing something.

So, with the “Sitting at a desk = Work” equation solved maybe more words will spew forth from my keyboard (But I’ll have to wait until one of the new ones finally turns up. I just can’t use this Logitech monstrosity any more. All the red squiggles are giving me bad classroom related flashbacks).

Look at me. Look at me.

2008-10-27T15:48:00.003Z

It really has been quite sometime since I last posted anything in this blog. Some people might have thought that I'd quietly put it to sleep. Others may even have thought that I myself had passed on. In actual fact, neither my blog or I are dead. Whilst I haven't actually published anything in an age, I have done the odd bit of writing. So now, after more than a year, I'm publishing what would have been my posts from the last few months (if only I'd got around to actually sticking them on my blog). I hope you enjoy it. It's not all fun and games, unfortunately, in fact some if it's downright depressing, but as such, I think it's a reasonably accurate representation of my life, such as it is.

Please do feel free to comment. Regardless of what your mother might have told you, even if you don't have anything nice to say, I'd still like to hear from you. Do try to be constructive with your criticism though. If my self esteem does have to take a bruising I would at least like it to benefit my writing in some way.

Oh, by the way, I'm thinking of adding a few appendices to my blogs for reviews of Technology, gadgetry, games, pubs,films books, music, and whatever other subjects about which I feel moved to write. I can't guarantee they'll be coming soon, but when they do appear I'll be sure to include appropriate links on this very blog. I may even allow these sections to be open to other contributors who will, no doubt, have a wider knowledge of things. It would, after all, be a shame to have the reviews section shackled by the constrains of my ever diminishing budget.

All that remains for me to do is to thank you, gentle reader, for putting up with my continued absence from webloggery. I can't promise I'll write more, but I shall certainly try and, after all, that's as much anybody can ask of a person.

Lost and found (or Finders Keepers...)

2008-10-05T16:46:00.000+01:00

5/10/08

And on the subject of Macs, I found one by the side of the road. It sounds odd, I know, but, on a grass verge no more than 50 meters from where I live I found and old style Apple eMac. After I hefted it home, struggling to carry the 17” CRT based machine across the road, I switched it on and was surprised to find that, with the exception of an easily correctable software flaw (the screen appeared only in the centre few 8” of the screen. By easily correctable, I actually mean that it took until 4am that morning, plus a few hours the next day to get fixed) it was in perfect working order. This was obviously something of a godsend as far as I was concerned. The previous day had been my last working for Hertz and frankly I could probably do with the money (probably upwards of £100) that selling the thing on eBay would have got me. You've probably noticed the past tense. Unfortunately my somewhat overly cautious mother was uncomfortable having it in the house. Despite that fact that, to my mind at least, it was obvious that the machine had been abandoned, probably because the previous owners couldn't get it to work properly, she insisted that I hand it in to the police. Given her illness, I thought it might be best to acquiesce. According to the police records, it hasn't been reported as being stolen, so, if nobody claims it within the next 28 days, I can go and pick it up. All that is, if you ask me, an awful lot of hassle given that all signs seem to indicate that the Mac was simply abandoned.

Anyway, I touched upon it briefly a little earlier, but I have now finished working for Hertz. Oddly enough I was actually a little sadder than I had been expecting. I wasn't sorry to have to say goodbye to the job, but I will miss all the people. Anyway, I was allowed the customary 2 hour lunch break during which I was bought and subsequently drank four pints of Fosters. Surprisingly, after a brief pit-stop at McDonalds, I was actually able to get through the afternoon. Is it strange that I feel bad for not having been able to finish off all my work? I left work with a £20 voucher for HMV and a promise to meet up with everyone for drinks on Friday.

So, what have I done since then? Well, aside from trying to clear out my bedroom, scavenging for things to sell, I've really just been catching up on TV and films that I hadn't got around to watching before. I've tried to get some exercise done too in a probably vain effort to get back in to shape. So far I'm stalling on 2.5 miles of cycling coupled with 50 sit ups. Yes, I know it's not a lot, but it's a start.

I've had a quick look at going to America again. I won't say too much right now, but I've found a few cheaper prices, so a mildly cut down trip may yet be a possibility.

I mentioned at the end of my last post that I might end up changing to the dark side and going all Mac. Well, the experience I had with the eMac has kind of put me off. Whilst OSX is quick to boot, it seems far less adaptable than Windows. I think, for now, I'll be saving my money and going for a Windows based laptop when my current 3.5 year old machine finally gives up the ghost. Hopefully it'll keep going for another year or so and I'll be able to skip Vista and head straight to a machine pre-installed with Windows 7, a Centrino 2 package and a blu-ray drive. For now I'll have to hope that my recent gadget purchases will sate me whilst I ride out the leaner times that lie ahead.

And now the end is near

2008-09-29T16:44:00.001+01:00

Well it's my penultimate day working at Hertz, unless some last minute reprieve come along (which, in many ways, I hope it doesn't) and my final day having a regular lunch break. Tradition dictates that tomorrow, on my final day, I'll have to take a 2 hour break which will be spent entirely in the pub. Of course, I am a little worried that nobody else will come along thus proving exactly how unpopular I really am, but we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see.

In other words, this is the last time I'll be typing anything whilst in Uxbridge Library. If I'm not working in the area I think it's highly unlikely I'll ever come back here; It's not exactly one of England's most important spots of natural beauty after all. Still, at least today there a e no freaks about and I'm being left in relative peace, sitting, as I am, completely alone, a good 10m away from anybody else.

Right, so a status update. I finally managed to find somewhere that would sell me an iPod Touch; The Apple Store in Brent Cross. A quick call to them on Wednesday afternoon confirmed that they had “Loads” in stock (I can only assume that they're hoarding them, preventing other less fortunate retailers from taking any deliveries until they've made the most out of being the country's sole supplier). Straight after work I drove down to Brent Cross and, after double checking that HMV and Currys really wouldn't be able to sell me one (the rather helpful guy in HMV actually suggested that my best bet would be the Apple Store) I walked in to the Apple store looked around a bit, until a plump sales assistant asked me if I needed any help. “Yes”, I said, I'll have a 32gb iPod Touch please. Minutes later I finally had my iPod. It's fair to say that I'm really impressed. Yes, at £289 it did cost an awful lot of money, but, and I can say this in all honesty, I'm suffering not one iota of buyer's remorse. I'll probably say more about it in a future post, but I can't imagine that I'll give it any less than a glowing review. My only concern is that the iPod Touch will act as a sort of Gateway Gadget and lead on to harder Apple products. Let's put it this way, just a few days later I found myself in John Lewis looking at the Macbooks and, for the first time, considering the possibility that it might be a good idea to buy one once my main laptop dies. Scary stuff. I may yet deviate from the true Windows faith and become a Macolite (despite the added expense for what is, on a hardware level at least, pretty much the same machine as a Windows based PC).

A final moan about the library

2008-09-21T16:38:00.001+01:00

It strikes me that this will be one of the last occasions on which I will find myself within the confines of Uxbridge Library. Whilst it's been a great place to shelter from the elements I have been subjected to some of the most inconsiderate, classless and downright odd people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. This, of course, happens in all library's. You only need to look back at my writing accounts from just prior to getting my job at Hertz to see that. Today I am being treated to the dubious delights of a black woman, wearing a headscarf. Of course, as ever, I have literally no problem with her appearance; I only mention it to aid your mental image and add colour to the scene. In fact, all I care about is the noise she's making. Within a few minutes I noticed her murmuring to herself. I initially assumed that she was reading her book aloud. As time has passed it's become increasingly obvious that this is not the case. At the peak of each sentence her tone rises almost as if she's gained some sort of revelatory insight in whatever it is she's reading. Then I noticed she was doing it even when she wasn't reading. In fact, she's not even looking at the book, yet she continues with what I can only assume is some kind of chant or incantation. She's giggling to herself now. Giggling whist eating peanuts. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say that she's another one of those care in the community cases that, from what I can tell, seem intent on frequenting local libraries, freaking out and annoying intensely the patrons who just want to read and work quietly. For the record, I'm both freaked out and annoyed. I was writing something else altogether, but as things are, I can only observe and document the distractions.

I've actually been rather annoyed of late. Whilst loosing my job has filled me with nothing but joy (with only a hint of worry about where the money is going to come from to fund my gadget buying habit), I am a little distressed that I have not been able to find anywhere that can sell me the last gadget on my pre-moving out list; a New 32gb iPod Touch.

A Weekend on the Broads

2008-09-14T16:36:00.000+01:00

A Weekend of Broads

And on that note, some tit as just decided to criticise me. And guess what? I didn't deserve it. Good morning gentle reader. Today I come to you live from the Norfolk Broads, where I am currently sitting on a boat bound for Thurne. Obviously I'm no longer piloting the boat; it would be hard to do that and type at the same time, but that's precisely what I've been doing for a large part of the trip. It;'s actually quite relaxing really. The boat moves at very sedate pace, but because it's so slow to manoeuvre too, key decisions about such trifling matters like steering need to be made well in advance. It was in one such situation that a torrent of abuse was unleashed upon me. Happily, the bile was not directed at me by a member of my crew, rather it came from a git of a sailor as he weaved about in front of me. I'd mad an attempt to pass behind his stern just as the rules state, only to have him change direction and block my path. This I didn't really mind. After all, sail boats are entirely at the whim of the winds. In other words, he couldn't help but impede my progress. He came about again and blocked me once more. I had just put the boat into hard reverse to avoid hitting him once more, when he yelled out impatiently “Can't you wait.” Aside from thinking that I was under the impression that “Waiting” was exactly what I was doing, I got a little agitated. Subsequently my “Sorry” was merely a sarcastic prefix to a justification of my actions which eventually climaxed with me telling the feckless Sailor to “Fuck off”. And quite rightly too. I, after all had stuck completely to the letter of the law. Additionally I had shown no real signs of impatience (since I didn't feel impatient, it would have been difficult to look impatient). Anyway, nods of agreement about my righteousness were, after a good ten minutes of ranting, enough to placate me. None the less, whilst I always appreciate constructive criticism, I hate it when some presumptuous twat decides to level it unfairly in my direction.

Anyway, aside from that (and the small, very minor and not at all damaging accident I had on the Saturday) the trip, on the whole, has been very pleasant and highly relaxing. Excluding Friday night, I've barely drunk at all. On Saturday morning, when I woke at about 7.30am I felt a little hangovery, but that soon cleared. Unfortunately, by 2.30pm I had an absolutely terrible headache. After a quick lie down and some paracetamol, it subsided, but, by the early evening it had returned once more. Perhaps it was partly cause a by the fact that my lunch had simply consisted of half a large packet of Chilli Heatwave Dorritos. It certaily wasn't the booze. Over the course of the day I managed only a shandy, one bottle of Carlsberg Export and a couple of pints in the evening.

Some small oddities I noticed about Wroxham, the small town that's home to Roy's business empire. We tried to get some chips, but by 7pm all of the proper chip shops (and by this I'm excluding the chinese take away and the kebab shop) had closed by 7pm. Also, there only seemed to be two pubs and perilously few places to eat. There were far more restaurants within any 20 meters of Rayners Lane tan in the whole town of Wroxham (though, Unlike Rayners lane they do have a McDonald's, albeit one within the property belonging to the ubiquitous Roy. Also, Rayners lane does, admittedly have more restaurants per square meter than anywhere else within greater London). We eventually settled on a little Pizzeria, where I, obviously went for the Margherita Pizza. A trip to one of Wroxham's fine drinking establishments followed, but only for one drink. The boat, along with all the booze contained therein, beckoned. Of course given my weakened state, it would have been unwise of we to imbibe any further alcoholic beverages. Instead, I stuck to the Coke that I'd purchased from the small Nisa convenient store we'd found on the way back. Some more drinking (not, as I've already said, by me) followed by a quick lie down (I was the sole participant in that activity) then, after an episode of Peep Show (or maybe two, I'm not sure), it was time for bed.

The next morning I awoke ridiculously early. Well, ridiculously early by my standards. For some strange reason, every morning whilst on this trip I seemed to be waking up just a little after 7am. Perhaps a previously hidden sense of wanderlust was making me rise at such an ungodly hour; it certainly wasn't the bed which I actually found to be a little more comfortable than the creaky old thing I have at home which always seems to give me a backache. Regardless, one of my shipmates also seemed to be waking up at about the same time (eerily he seemed to know that I had left the land of nod as well, despite that fact that I was being almost entirely silent and completely immobile), so we set about the business of breakfast, showering (a process that required the boats engine to be turned on so as to heat up the water. Unfortunately this meant that we had to wake up our shipmate who slept up front in the main cabin). Once all of those duties had been taken care of we got the boat under way.

After lunch in a pleasant pub (which played host to a large breasted barmaid to whom I took a fancy. Obviously, being me, I did literally noting to sate my fancy, but there you go)in a place that I think was called Thurne, we headed off towards Potter Heigham, the place from which our last boating holiday of nine years ago had begun. This, as it turned out, was a terrible mistake. Last time out Potter Heighham had served simply as a starting point for the journey. Much as we had done with Stalham this time out, on outr previous trip, we had, on arrival at Potter Heigham, simply parked up the car, unloaded our gear and sailed away. If only we had simply sailed on this time around.

09/09/08

2008-09-09T16:35:00.000+01:00

...then work came and made us free?

Work is getting extraordinarily tiresome. Fortunately, at the end of today I will have only 3 weeks more to endure. Actually, much of my job isn't too bad. However, what I do find to be entirely unpalatable is answering the phone. There I am subjected to the full gamut of human stupidity and cruelty, frequently within the same call. Yesterday, I had to deal with somebody who spoke only very broken English and didn't seem to understand any of my questions. Today I've been subjected to an idiotic tirade from a Northern simpleton who seemed incapable of allowing me to help him. The man had a new claim to report (at least that's how its seemed at first) so I told him that I'd have to transfer him to my colleague who deals with such things. Apparently this wasn't good enough. Instead of getting put in touch with someone who could actually help him, he chose to rant on to me. It finally transpired he had been sent some claim forms to fill in. Within the covering letter it suggested that the accident could be reported either by filling in the form or telephoning. The purpose of his call was to find out which he should do. Well, I say that was the purpose, but in actual fact it was more like the excuse for the call. The real reason he had called, or so it seemed to me, was to harp on about how terrible the service was, how I didn't know what I was doing (Of course I didn't. Right from the start, I'd told him that one of my colleagues deals with such matters). Finally he started racially abusing the Spanish driver who hit his car, protesting that he shouldn't have to go to all this trouble just because the Spanish couldn't drive. It was then that I hung up on him. Frankly I've no intention of entertaining bigoted idiots, especially now that I've lost my job there.

Actually, thinking back, I put the phone down after he insulted me. If there's one thing I can't stand even more than racism it's unwarranted criticism.

8/09/08

2008-09-08T16:33:00.000+01:00

Well, after a whole weekend of research, I can conclude that my trip to America simply isn't happening. The main reason (excluding fear, which I actually seemed to have under control) is cost. After working out that I was nowhere near rich enough to travel from coast to coast I decided to scale things down a bit. My trip would be limited to one coast. I've never been to the West coast before, but the lure of the familiar drew me towards New York. So, I was going to the East Coast. After a little thought I eventually came up with a route. I'd fly in to Boston, then, after 4 nights I'd make my way to Niagara Falls, then up to Toronto. After that I'd head back down to Manhattan and fly back home from Washington after a brief tour of the sights. As it turns out, that was going to be too expensive too. By the time I pared it down to an affordable level there was little point in going at all, especially when you consider that fact that I might be going to New York next year to accompany a friend to the Marathon (though not on it, obviously). Basically, accommodation costs in Boston were a little high, but manageable. Niagara was, relatively speaking, a bargain, and Toronto wasn't too bad either. However New York would have cost me just as much as the other places, but instead of having my own bathroom, I'd have to share wash facilities in a hostel. All of this would have totally wiped out my savings.

At the end of the day, I think I basically objected to the idea of having to pay twice as much for an unaccompanied trip as I would have to pay if I could bring someone else along. My big adventure, which, I have to admit was conceived partially as a way to prove how fine I was about being alone , had just gone to prove exactly how much of a handicap it is to be single.

I just seem to be one of the few remaining single people that I know, and, unfortunately, that means that more and more often, I'm going to be left with nothing to do whilst my mates gallivant about with their significant others.

05/09/08

2008-09-05T16:31:00.000+01:00

All things considered, it hasn't been such a bad week. Much of the depression has lifted (there was a very slight dip on Wednesday when I realised I wouldn't have a job and thus, no more money for toys), and I feel a little more like myself. Well, the “myself” that was always supposed to be. The one without the dark clouds.

There's so much planning required for the US trip though. Where exactly am I going to go, how will I get there, how long will I stay? At the moment I'll probably be flying in to San Francisco from which I'll make my way to New York (Where, this time, I'll have to make sure I explore more of the Village). However, once I've plotted it all out, it my become apparent that I've got the time to fly to Vancouver (a city I've wanted to visit due to the Douglas Coupland connection and a good review from a Canadian girl and former Vancouver resident who used to work at Hertz) and head down to California via Seattle, the home of Grunge music and expensive Starbucks Coffee. Lots of decisions to be made, but I'll try to defer them until I get a new passport. In the mean time I also have next weekend's trip to the Norfolk broads to look forward to. The boat, which is apparently going to cost us £130 each, sounds pretty well equipped. Two bathrooms (I think) and a separate bedroom for each of us. It's almost luxurious. Apparently my friend has posted all the details to Facebook, though, as ever, I can't check it whilst I'm at work since it's on the list of sites my Nazi employers deem unsuitable. Honestly, it's worse than communist China. Maybe I'll look in to finding a proxy for Facebook that actually works. After all, what's the worst they can do to me?

By the way, I'm becoming more and more impressed by this new mini laptop on a daily basis. Obviously I'd have hated it if I ended up with one of the models with the dodgy touchpad, but this particular version suits me fine. I barely notice that it's in my bag (a new, padded Belkin laptop messenger bag. It's designed for notebooks up to 12”, but it seems to do the trick) most days, and it seems pretty damn good to type on. The screens really not bad ether. It think I've got it at about 1/6 brightness and it seems perfectly fine to me. One of the few complaint I have is that all of the status lights (indicators for wi-fi, bluetooth, caps lock etc) are obscured by the palm of my right hand as I type. Unfortunately, since I'm not entirely a touch typist, I still have to look at the keyboard as I type, which has meant that I've completely failed to notice that everything's been changed to upper case. Fortunately, Open Office writer has a facility for changing the case of your writing, so it's not too much of an imposition.

Escape to the New World

2008-09-03T16:30:00.000+01:00

Well, it looks like I've got my wish. I'm off the the US of A. My boss felt really bad about not renewing my contract. I ended up having to spend time consoling her about having to let me go. I actually feel great about it. I finally don't mind going in to work now. Knowing that it's all going to come to an end in four weeks time somehow makes the whole thing more palatable. I had none of the usual feelings of being strangled as I made my way to the station. No excessive, anxious sweating either. Maybe feeling all that on top of the alcohol sponsored nausea would have been too much for my body to take. Or, maybe, without work to worry about, all the anxiety and depression will go away.

Anyway, the reason why I was felling a little (but really only a very little) the worse for wear was that I'd been to a pub in Baker Street to discuss arrangements For next weekend's trip to the Norfolk Broads. I'll say more about that on another occasion, but a plan was set in motion. I'll work on Friday Morning, but then head straight to Seven Sisters from which I shall get a ride all the way up to England's flattest county. It transpires that I have 4 days Holiday owing to me, so I'm going to use 1.5 days for the trip to the broads and get full pay for the remainder. Not a bad deal I think. That should go some way to paying for my new iPod Touch, or maybe all the way towards buying a digital camera.

Apparently Gok Wan was in Uxbridge filming today. Unfortunately (or is that fortunately) I didn't make it out to lunch quick enough to bump in to him and the screaming masses that were following him around (seriously, is he worth that much adoration?). Instead, I sit hear in the library typing all this out after having first done a little light reading of “Dexter in the Dark”, the third and not quite as good as its predecessors, book in the “Dexter” series (as seen on TV-ish).

Once more I must take my leave of you. A couple more hours of work beckon. The countdown to freedom begins.

Untitled 2/09/08

2008-09-02T16:01:00.000+01:00

The past few weeks since have been more than a little disappointing. I've felt more depressed. work's seemed worse than ever. To top it all off, my best friend in my office got offered a job and left on Friday.

Today I was told that I am to attend a meeting to discuss the end of my contract which expires on the 30^th September. What will be said at this meeting is, at present, a little unclear. At no point before today has there ever been a one on one meeting to discuss contract extensions, which would suggest that another contract term may not be on the cards. So, it seems likely that I will either loose my job altogether, be offered it on a full time, permanent basis or, and this is an outside possibility based a little on my demonstrated computer prowess and on my supervisors recent promotion to manager, be offered a new job altogether.

I shall find out at 4pm. To be honest, the best case scenario for me would be a contract extension. Then I could work for a month longer and build up a little much needed cash for a trip across America that I'm thinking of doing. Honestly though, my spirits are pretty low, so I don't really want to be working there for longer than I can possibly help it.

I should also note that today is the birthday of one of my friends (we're meeting up this evening, ostensibly to discuss an impending trip on the Norfolk Broads, but also, I'm presuming, to celebrate his 31st year on the planet) so happy birthday to him. On a rather sadder note it's also the twelfth anniversary of my Father's death. I don't think I've really said an awful lot about that subject. It was, perhaps, the cause of a major depression that stayed with me throughout much of my time as an undergraduate at university, the major result of which was my relatively poor degree. If only I'd thought to seek help back then? I wonder different things would have been? I'm only really grazing the subject, no doubt I'll broach it more fully at a later date. Maybe not. regardless, I can, of course, do nothing about it now. From here on in I can only have an impact on my future, a future which will, almost inevitably spell further unemployment along with a few, post work drinks.

The Return

2008-08-11T16:03:00.002+01:00

Right, I really don't have a lot of time to type, so I'll make this quick. Yes, I haven't done anything with this blog for almost a year. I'm well aware of that. But I do have my reasons, and I'll go in to them later. By later I might mean later in this entry or on another day altogether. I'm far to fickle to be even vaguely committal at the moment.

Anyway, once more, I'm typing this blog during my lunch break from a library, Uxbridge library. This of course means that I'm almost certainly still working in Uxbridge, but do I still work for Hertz? Unfortunately, I do, which is obviously a cause of great distress to me.

On the plus side, I'm typing this blog entry on my brand new netbook, mini-laptop-thing. Its diminutive size should, hopefully, allow me to carry it around wherever I go, so hopefully that'll mean more writing from now on in. With it's smaller keyboard, it's a little different to type on, so a few more errors in my typing will probably creep in until I've managed to become accustomed to it. At the moment, with Wi-fi off and 10% of the battery depleted, It's telling me that I should get another 2.5 hours out of it. Anyway, we'll see. I love it though. It still has that wonderful “new electrical item smell”.

But, you might ask (you might ask, but I wouldn't be able to hear you even if you did), surely I must have spent the last 10-11 months doing more than buying a tiny little laptop (there was research of course. Lot's of tedious, painstaking research; I loved it.)? Of course they have. I've bought loads of other stuff too. An Xbox 360 (even though I'd previously said that I never would. See, I'm terribly fickle), a PS3(just for blu rays, not for games. I only own two games and one of those came with the machine). On top of that (physically as well as metaphorically. Well, technically it stands atop a brand new glass stand, but the consoles lie beneath so I think I can be excused my slight technical inaccuracy) sits a brand new(-ish, I've had it since November last year) 32” Sony HD LCD TV.

So, I've bought stuff. What else? Hmm, what else? I fell for a girl at work who didn't like me back (probably for the best, on reflection I think she may have been a bit unbalanced.) She then became quite obviously attracted to a new guy who started (actually, blatantly is a better word. No, an even better word would be shamelessly. She was, at times, all over the poor guy, which I guess is the main reason why he wouldn't have been all that interested.) She left, which was probably best for all concerned.

I've been on holiday twice, most recently to Dublin (Again,. I was there last in 2004) which was great, and before that, to Warsaw, which wasn't. Actually it was depressingly like going on holiday in Slough, if Slough were overpriced and had fewer people in it. Actually I get the impression that most of Warsaw's previous residents had found their way to Berkshire. Maybe they feel at home there, who knows. Anyway, Slough... I mean Warsaw was a wholly depressing place where many depressing things happened. Once I returned home I headed to my Doctor's and got diagnosed with depression. This probably won't come as much of a shock to those of you who've been following my previous musings. Clearly some outside force (actually it's clearly an inside force since it's taken up residence on my head) was guiding me down the wrong path, ensuring that I could never drag myself away from the mediocrity

The little voice that tells me that I'm incapable of doing any better is a little quieter now. The one that tells me that even if I am good enough I don't deserve good things to happen to me is lying (if a disembodied thing can lie) bleeding to death in the gutter. It's that last voice that nearly made me run away from a recent interview. I stood outside the building, waiting to go in to my delayed interview. The job was pretty damn good. The advert from the Metro simply read

COPYWRITER WANTED

Experience an advantage but by no means essential, would also suit graduate or first-time jobber. Healthy interest in consoles and video games a big plus. Good English, grammar and punctuation a must! Small company based in Fulham, offering a fast-track to management and more money within a year for the right person. Starting salary of £18,000, plus participation in weekly cash bonus scheme.

If you're available immediately and want to work in a fun and dynamic environment,
call ***** now on 020 7*******

So, the only contact details were a telephone number. Normally, this would have put me off altogether. “What, you mean I have to talk to someone to get this job. No way, I'm not going to do it.” And that would be that. I'd ignore the add and move on to something else. But not this time. Whether it was because of the extra mental strength imbued through medication, or maybe it was because I really wanted to write about video games (Let's be honest, it was probably a combination of both), after a morning of soul searching I, after my boss had gone home for the day, picked up the phone and dialled the number. I talked to the voice on the other end for a while. I'm told by my friend who sits across from me, that I sounded really confident. I don't really remember, but I guess I must have done something right because I'd somehow managed to talk my way into an interview. To my mind, the interview went pretty well. In fact, I was pretty sure I'd actually managed to pull it off. Whilst the ad had said Fulham, the actual location of the company was Parson's Green, just one stop down from Fulham Broadway. I knew that I could easily manage the 45 minute train ride. It would give me ample time to read or maybe even write. Plus, since work hours were 10am until 6pm,I'd actually have a little more time for a lie in every morning.

One the way up there, I got a message on my mobile to let me know that the interview would have to be delayed by 30minutes. Not a big deal really. Sure, the delay added to my overall nervousness, but at least it would give me time to explore the surrounding area. Whilst there was little in the way of chain stores and restaurants (the delay had made me realise that I was craving a McDonalds Cheeseburger) there were a whole bunch of pubs, cafés and, most importantly, a library. Looking at the area's denizens I briefly fretted over not being (or looking) quite cool enough to work somewhere like this, but a trip to the nearby Gregg's Bakery for a sausage roll, where I noted the similarly not-cooler-than-thou clientèle, quelled my worries.

Anyway, to the interview itself. It took me a while to find the exact location of the office. On my reccy when I'd first arrived, I'd noted the company's sign, which I assumed would be pretty near to their front door. I headed down the side alley, a route suggested by the positioning of the signage, expecting to be greeted by a handy front door. Instead I found a man who, judging by his accent, was of Eastern European origin. Apparently there's an old joke Hollywood joke about a polish actress who sleeps with a screenwriter to get a part in a movie, the joke being that screenwriters have no power over hiring and firing for a movie (or over anything really), but the Polish actress was to dumb to know that. Effectively, in this branch of mildly racist humour, the average Pole is cast in much the same part as the Irishmen in “There was an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman” jokes. I've never really understood how those jokes could have come about, since pretty much everybody I've ever met from Ireland seems to be pretty sharp. Conversely, the Eastern European man (for argument's sake, I'll say he was Polish) was doing his level best to reinforce the stereotype. Since, he was working on an entranceway to what, logically, seemed like the portal to the office sought, I asked him if he could point me in the right direction. His reply went something like this... “Many people have ask me where is this company. I do not know. Perhaps is next door?” I answered probably not, but thanked him for his help none the less. Obviously I'm not all that fond of racism and xenophobic stereotyping, so I would still be hopeful that this particular predjudice wouldturn out to be absolute codswallop.

As it turned out, the doorway he was working on happened to be the entryway to the office I required. In other words, he was so thick (or perhaps simply ill informed; I'll give him the benefit of the doubt) that he didn't even know for whom he was actually working.

Anyway, after making a few enquiries of another gentleman who was clearly more clued up than the Pole, I discovered that I had to go through the entrance of the building next door in order to get to the interview. The builders therein who were working on what appeared to the the kitchen and toilet area, were far more clued up than their Eastern European counterpart. From them I found out that the interviews were taking place just upstairs and that, as soon as the current one was over, I could start mine.

A short while, and a trip to the toilet later (last minute nerves perhaps) it was time for my interview. A woman with black hair and olive skin came to meet me. It transpired that this was the same woman who had spoken to me on the phone a couple of days earlier.

Until the downstairs building work was completed, the company was based entirely in one, near pristine, white room., accessible via a dirt covered, but clearly newly refurbished, staircase. My interviewer apologised for the messy stairs, noting that it didn't seem worthwhile cleaning them whilst all the building work was going on. I looked around the room. Sitting atop the desk on the right side of the room was a pristine, porcelain white iMac. It's newly opened box lay just a few meters away in the corner of the room. On the opposite desk was a Sony Vaio Laptop which my interviewer had clearly just been using.

The interview itself too the form of a brief chat, a handing over of my work examples and a quick 15 minute writing test during which I had to come up with promotional-(ish) blurb for 3 new/upcoming games, writing 100 words on each. The games were Resident Evil 5 (a game nobody really knows an awful lot about besides the “controversial”fact that it was set in Africa, meaning that all the bad guy Zombies would be black), The Star Wars, The Force Unleashed, a new multi-media/marketing opportunity tie in, which I'd never heard of, so I ended up writing an awful lot about Star Wars in general. The final game was Fallout 3. I'd heard the title, but knew little else about it. Handy then, that I was provided with a couple of magazines and the whole of the internet for research.

I don't think I did too badly. Apparently I did well enough to meet the guy who was bankrolling the operation too, so I went away with a good feeling about the whole thing. I'd find out on Monday afternoon whether my faith had been misplaced.

So, Monday afternoon came and went, and I received no call. By the time I returned home I was deflated. It seemed likely that I hadn't got the job. I actually spent a while convincing myself that not getting the job wasn't altogether bad. It was, of course, but there's no use pining after something that I clearly couldn't have. Or could I? At about 7pm my phone rang. Upon answering I was greeted by an apology that it had taken so long to get back to me. Apparently they'd had “shitloads” of applicants and it had taken some time to whittle them down. Anyway, they'd compiled a short-list of three people and I was on it. I'd get a final decision the next day.

When the decision finally came on Tuesday afternoon I was disappointed. I hadn't got the job. Worse, from what he'd said “we had to choose somebody” I got the impression that they'd virtually picked the winner's name out of a hat. I was pretty despondent despite the promise that they'd look me up in a few months time when they planned to expand and new positions became available. It remains to be seen whether that actually happens.

Yet another job related post.

2007-09-10T22:48:00.000+01:00

Again, massive gap between post. Sorry, but I just don’t seem to be able to get round to writing anything when I’m really busy. So, what have I been up to since my last post, live from a top Harrow library. I think I mentioned this before, but my plan for my time off was to actually do some proper writing. Unfortunately the two posts prior to this one are the only results of my good intentions. On the Friday of my first week of freedom from the servitude of work I was told by my agency that they’d managed to secure an interview for me at Hertz in Uxbridge. The job didn’t sound great, but, even after working at the school for 6 weeks and taking out £1000 of my investments, I still had very little money in my bank account. This was mostly as a result of having gone deep into my overdraft just prior to my job in the school. Anyway, I certainly didn’t have enough to keep me going for much more than a month so, as much as I wanted to spend a few months writing, I was in dire need of extra funding. The interview was scheduled for the following Monday. Thankfully it was midway through the afternoon, at 2.45, which at least meant that I wasn’t going to turn up to it all flustered, tired and hot, something that I think had scuppered my chances of getting the job from a few weeks earlier where the interview had taken place at 10am, just after a brief appointment at the agency at 9.30am to discuss how I should approach the interview. I rushed to that and was then kept waiting for a good 10 minutes before anybody would talk to me. That then meant that I had to rush down the road to the place where I was having the actual interview, something that ensured that I turned up thoroughly hot and bothered. Shame really. Boss aside, the job looked quite good. Well, the job looked ok, but one of the girls in the office was really hot. I certainly wouldn’t have minded getting up every morning to see her. Anyway, I digress, I didn’t get that job, but I’d learned exactly where I’d gone wrong. I’d suggested to the agency that morning interviews were really a bad idea. Basically I knew I’d stand a better chance of getting a job if I’d been able to get a good lie in and could travel to the interview at a leisurely pace. I also realised that having a suit that actually fit me was quite a good idea, and I’d bought one (actually had one bought for me by my Mum, but still) a few weeks earlier. Before the interview came the pre-interview preparation at the agency. This time they wanted me to go to their branch in Hounslow. They’d actually asked me to be there for 11am, but, sensibly I thought, I asked then if that could be moved to 12.30 so that I could go straight from there to my interview in Uxbridge. Being me, I didn’t manage to sleep particularly well on Sunday night and I awoke on Monday morning some while before my alarm went off feeling more than a little tired. Still, I felt a little better after having some sausages for breakfast. I got dressed at a leisurely pace (no rushing this morning, no matter what) and got in my car a full hour before my 12.30 appointment. More than ample time, I though, to get there considering the fact that my satnav had told me it would take only 30 minutes. I took my jacket off, set up my satnav, turned on the air-conditioning and set it to full blast. There was no way I’d turn up looking all hot and sweatty this time. After a minute or so of driving, my satnav actually managed to get a fix on a few satellites (I’m sure it used to just find them straight away) and the calming voice of satnav-Sally began to guide me towards Hounslow.

Satnavs are, in my opinion, fantastic. I always used to worry a bit about going somewhere I’d never been to before. Obviously it didn’t put me off enough to shy away from making the journey altogether, but, owing to my somewhat poor sense of direction, I was unwilling to set off anywhere new without first printing out a map of the route along with detailed directions from both the AA route planner and MS Autoroute. This tended to mean that I had to drive with a set of directions sitting on my steering wheel, something that diverted my attention from the actual driving and made me more likely to have an accident or be pulled over by some overzealous and, undoubtedly, bored, policeman. With satnav, this isn’t a problem anymore. Theoretically. Unfortunately, every time I go somewhere there seems to be some previously unpredicted obstacle right at the end of my journey. My trip to Hounslow was no different. A few hundred meters from my destination I was faced with a set of roadworks that completely blocked my route. Subsequently I ended up having to find my way around them, aided only by someone at the agency who had called to find out if I was OK, since I was now about 10 minutes late. Personally I didn’t mind about being 10 minutes late. It was in trying not to be late to my pre-interview preparation that I got myself flustered. I wasn’t about to repeat the mistake. Besides, I had plenty of time to make it to the interview afterwards. After all, it didn’t start for another two hours, and it was only another 30minute journey from Hounslow to Uxbridge.

Eventually I made it to the pay and display car park across the road from the agency. I subsequently discovered that there were a fair few unused parking spaces within the grounds of the agency, but I’d been told that I‘d have to park in the Pay and display, so that was what I did.

The agency’s Hounslow branch was a good deal more impressive than the Ealing one. Where as the Ealing branch was situated above a shop on the High Street, Hounslow had it’s own, recently constructed building. They both shared the same sort of fixtures and fittings with each branch being decorated in the company colours, but Hounslow somehow seemed more impressive. I think that’s the only context in which I could possibly describe anything to do with Hounslow as being impressive. Hounslow is, after all, a bit of a dump, so I was bound to find anything that wasn’t in keeping with the rest of the area’s shabby un-chic appearance to be a pleasant surprise.

The preparation seemed to go well. I said all the right things, so they sent me off on my way, seemingly confident that I’d get the job.

I got back in my car, once again engaging the air-con and set off towards Uxbridge. It was a little after 1pm. About 30 minutes later, after having got a little lost despite my satnav (on ti occasion it was my fault. I’d failed to notice that it had actually directed me to the right place, despite Sally’s declaration that I was exactly where I wanted to be. I’d managed to drive just a little to far, and gone right past the massive and fairly noticeable Hertz building and was about to enter a Buses only zone. Still, I finally made it to reception with only… 1hour to spare. Great, I was in for a long wait. Still, at least I’d be able to go through all the information the agency had given me about the job. After getting a pass I parked my car in the visitors section of the underground car park and slowly got myself together. It was dark, so I went off to reception to wait and do my final preparation. It was 2pm. 45 minutes before my interview.

35 minutes later I was collected for my interview. The building, dating back all the way to 2002, seemed very much like any ordinary large office. At least, it looked like any ordinary large office I’d seen on TV. Previously I’d only worked for small companies in small offices. This was on an altogether different scale. The interview went pretty well, I thought, with the only blip coming when one of the interviewers asked how old I was. What is this obsession with my age? It was the second time in as many interviews that I’d been asked how old I was and I was beginging to get paranoid about it. Do I just look particularly decrepit. Maybe it’s the thinning hair and the expanding waist?

After the interview, as tradition seems to dictate, I got a limited tour of the building which took in the canteen (nicer than I’d expected. I think that my idea of a canteen still backdates to when I was last at school. Of course at the time of the interview, the last time I’d been at school had been only 10 days earlier) and the Gym (way smaller and far less well appointed that I’d imagined, though perhaps, I’d imagined something that was pretty much unrealistic. I’d never been to a gym before and I guess I just imagined it would be like all of those dedicated gyms that I’ve seen on TV. I really must get out more). Apparently gym membership was only £10 a month, not bad considering that it did, in fact, have everything you’d need for a good workout. I made some enthusiastic noises; having the opportunity to exercise in my lunch break was certainly appealing, but ultimately I think my phobia of exposing myself in front of strangers would prevent me from ever using it.

I toyed with the idea of doing a bit of shopping before I went home, but ultimately I couldn’t be bothered. Well, I couldn’t be bothered and didn’t have any money anyway so there was really very little point in prolonging my stay in Uxbridge. I set off home.

Once there, I got changed and, as instructed, gave the agency a call. I found myself actually being pretty positive (though I voiced my concern that I’d been asked, once more, how old I was. The lady at the agency to whom I spoke could only comment that I had looked pretty smart from behind, but she hadn’t seen me from the front so was unable to comment on the effects of my potential rapid aging.) At the end of the conversation she promised to give Hertz a call and get back to me ASAP. About 20 minutes later she did just that. Apparently they were impressed by both candidates (me and the other guy) but, ultimately, when pressed, they were forced to admit that I was the best. Obviously this was highly gratifying, but it did have the unfortunate effect of thrusting me, once more, back into employment. I was to start on Wednesday.

So, I had one day to prepare myself. One day to buy a new pair of trousers and perhaps a shirt. I’d also decided to do something on that day that I’d been putting off for a long time. I was going to get my eyes tested so that I could buy a new pair of glasses to replaced my 7 year old, heavily scratched and, in the corner of one lens, chipped pair. The lens had been chipped after I’d gone down to Brighton to visit a friend and we, drunkenly, decided to have a pretend fight in the street. After he accidentally (or so he assures me) cuffed me across the head, the left lens came loose and shot across the pavement. When we eventually found it, a chip had appeared in the top right hand corner. Nothing that would impede my vision, but I would have to put up with this relatively minor cosmetic blemish for another 5 years.

The Next Day….

I obviously had to get used to getting up for work every morning, so in preparation I decided to wake up bright and early at 11am.

My plan was to go on a shopping trip to Uxbridge, the aim being to both acquire a new pair of trousers, and see exactly how to get to the Hertz building from the station. I’d decided that to spare myself the hassle of driving, I’d get to work by tube. I’d actually started to develop something of a hatred for driving after having to spend an hour in heavy traffic each morning whilst attempting to make it to Heston on time. I certainly didn’t want to repeat the experience. Driving should, after all, be fun, not a chore. I’d reserve car trips for pleasure purposes, like my now weekly trip out for drinks in Marlow where I’d be able to really “open her up”(whether you can truly “open up” a 5 year old Vauxhall Astra is, however, debatable, but with its sports suspension if definitely hold on to the road well, even if the stiff ride means that running over anything larger than a tiny pebble feels like it’s dislodging your spine) on the twisty A-Roads and actually have some fun. Of course I’d still use my car to get the weekly shopping, but that would be in the evening when I wouldn’t have to deal with rush hour traffic.

Inevitably, just as I was about to leave for Rayners Lane Station, my Mum professed a desire to come along. On the plus side she did at least “help” with choosing trousers. I ended up buying the pair that she said she didn’t like; a sure indicator that I’d made the right choice. I also bought a couple of shirts in the sale at Burtons, one for work and one for non-work. Unfortunately, after only one wash, the shirt, which had previously been a perfect fit, managed to shrink meaning that it unfortunately had to go back. Still, otherwise it was a successful trip. I’d worked out how to get to work and I’d got some clothes to wear once I made it there. Time however, had marched on, so I had to head straight from Uxbridge to Harrow where I’d had my 2.30 eye test appointment at Boots opticians.

The initial signs weren’t all that good. I was kept waiting for about 25 minutes, and during that time two people had appeared to complain about their glasses. One persons glasses didn’t fit (an easily rectifiable problem though, with careful measuring it shouldn’t have happened in the first place) and the other was insisting that the glasses had not been prepared to her prescription.

Eventually I was ushered in the back room to have my eye test. I subsequently found out that the vision in my right eye has improved, which didn’t really come as a shock to me. My eyesight had seemed to be getting better of late and, owing to the state of my glasses, it had been preferable to look at things without my artificial ocular aids. The only down side was the glaucoma test which apparently showed that I was in the high end of the safe area, meaning that I was at risk of being at risk. So, not all that bad really.

Choosing the glasses was, however, a bit of a nightmare. It was buy one get one of the same or lower price free, so I’d have to choose a spare pair as well. Happily my Mum, who’d reappeared after her own shopping odyssey, was once more, on hand to offer some expert advice.

I should add that I’m usually pretty good at making decisions on things. Remember, just hours before I’d managed to choose a pair of trousers with no meaningful input from anyone else. However, the glasses thing had me stumped. I was pretty sure that I’d found the primary pair, but I couldn’t seem to find a second pair that I liked and that would actually suit my face.

In the end I’d got fed up with (and slightly revolted) at looking at my face in the mirror. I ended up being convinced that no pair would ever look good because I’d be the one wearing them. Things were further complicated by the fact that I’d limited myself to glasses under £99.99 by choosing the primary pair at that price. The second pair, if it was being used as sunglasses, had to cost the same or less than the primary pair. In the end I went for a near identically styled pair that simply had slightly smaller lenses.

Of course, once I’d chosen the glasses and declared as much to the optician they presented me with the option of having photosensative lenses. More decision. In the end I went for the photosenstive lenses (even though they cost £90 more) for the primary and regular, but scratch proof lenses for the spare set. In retrospect I think that I should have had sunglasses as the spare pair since the reactalight lenses don’t change if I’m looking through my car windscreen, which sort of negates one of my intended uses.

Anyway, having solved the glasses conundrum I had to face my first day of work. And I’ll tell you all about it another time. Hopefully soonish. And, if I do get around to writing again you can hear about how bad my training was, how I managed to start a massive argument with a "senior" member of staff after having been there for only 3 weeks and how I somehow managed to get my contract renewed.

New Post

2007-09-10T22:43:00.000+01:00

The next post was actually written 6 weeks ago, but I just never got around to finishing/posting it. Plus it was ridiculously long and contained an awful lot of rambling rubbish. Actually, I'm not sure ho that makes it any different to any of my other posts. Anyway, in the interest of actually contributing to my blog I am going to publish it. I've been a little off writing of late (work/mood related badness), but hopefully I'll get back to writing again soon. In the meantime, here's the full, unedited mid-late July blog post.

Nothing

2007-07-05T00:32:00.003+01:00

I didn't head to the library today. My local one was closed and I didn't fancy the walk to the centre of Harrow. Needless to say, my mother's endless requests prevented me from doing any writing whatsoever. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. I think this is my shortest ever post.

Day 2

2007-07-03T20:32:00.000+01:00

Today I’m in Rayners lane library, finishing off my blog entries. Let’s put it this way, I now long for the halcyon, relatively noise free, day at Gayton Library. There are far more problems with Rayners lane Library. First, down to an incredibly bad bit of planning half of what used to be the study area is now designated as a children’s library. There may be a flimsy wall and doors between us, but I could still hear them shrieking and whooping. Not the kids fault, but bloody annoying all the same. Then there’s been someone who decided to have a long conversation about the poor mark she got on her essay that she didn’t feel she deserved. Quite frankly, I think she did deserve it if only because she talks loudly to people on her mobile phone in libraries. After all, when I got a call (from the agency, offering me interviews at jobs that had a sales aspect. When will they learn? That said, I’d rather they mentioned things to me than not). Then there’s the scary Asian guy, who picked up a newspaper, and, unbelievably loudly turned, no flung, each page open as if he was trying to cause maximum annoyance. This was clearly part of his two pronged aural assault because he combined it with the sort of heavy breathing that would put Darth Vader to shame (two Darth mentions in as many post. I’m a hack). Of course, the thing I found most disturbing about him was the fact that he spent a good few minutes, as he started reading the paper; he sat in his seat, rocking his upper body back and forth in the manner of a complete loon. Libraries are truly scary places. I’ll give Gayton one more go tomorrow (Rayners Lane’s closed on Wednesdays), but I’m starting to think this whole library thing might not work out as well as I could have hoped. I definitely, so far, prefer Gayton. For one it’s simply a nicer environment. Secondly they don’t mind you having a drink whilst you work. In fact, given the presence of a hot drinks station they clearly encourage it. Rayners Lane, backwards thinking as ever, have signs across the library that completely forbid food and/or drink.

Plus, whilst I have been writing, I still haven’t actually properly started my screenplay. I think that maybe I don’t enjoy having to tediously set up the formatting etc. Maybe I’ll give all that a go when I get home. Anyway, that’s where I have to head right now because my battery is once more, about to die. There are plug sockets by the desk at Gayton, so I should be able to use it off the mains. Failing that I’ll probably borrow my sister’s battery (she has the same laptop, so it should work). I should really get myself a spare battery for just this sort of occasion. Perhaps once one crops up on eBay that I can actually afford and finishes at a time when I can actually be at my computer for the close of the auction, and not finished at 10.44pm on Friday night when any sane person is bound to be out down the pub.

Unemployed again. Occupationally, but hopefully not cerebrally.

2007-07-03T00:32:00.000+01:00

Right now I’m sitting in Gayton Library attempting to write. It’s not exactly going well owing to the fact that some people are so bloody inconsiderate. First a mother let her children loose on the study area where they decided that it would be a great idea to play games, the sister occasionally yelling “Jump” to ensure that her younger brother took the correct course of action. They left, but were replaced by a slightly more annoying girl who decided that it would be a great idea to carry on with a phone conversation in what I think must be Polish. So far my wonderful experiment of trying to get some aggravation free time to write during the day in the library isn’t going all that well.

Ah good. They’ve all fucked off. Now maybe I’ll get a bit of peace.

Of course, you may ask, what am I doing in a library in the middle of the working day? Unfortunately my temping job at the school in Heston finally came to an end. I had hoped that it would last another three weeks (which it would have done had the girl who was returning to the position after maternity leave managed to get the Head’s PA position for which she had applied), but then I hadn’t expected it to last quite as long as it did, so I at least have to be thankful for the work I’ve managed to get.

It’s actually been the most pleasant experience of work that I’ve ever had. Sure the work was pretty dull, tedious and, forgive me for sounding a touch self important, a little beneath me.

(FFS the kids are back and now they’re banging on a computer’s keyboard for, seemingly, no reason. You’d think that their mother would exert some sort of control over them. Could she not, at least, exhibit some kind of consideration for the other users of the study area who, just like me, probably just want to have a little peace and quiet? Now the boy is providing a commentary to his inane computer game antics. This is seriously annoying. )

Where was I? Ah yes, work. Yes, the job itself may not have been particularly intellectually taxing (it was actually fairly mindless, save for my brief stints on reception which were merely terrifying) and the journey, which sometimes lasted as much as 1hour and 15minutes, was a hellish odyssey though a slow crawl through heavy traffic, but the school itself was a really nice place to be. It took me a couple of weeks to get relaxed. After all I’d been used to working in an environment where people were constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting for me to make a mistake for which I could be gratuitously chastised. Did there people not realises that, by putting me under so much more pressure than was absolutely necessary, they were making my life far more difficult and setting me up to fail. Do they not realise that the very act of observing someone changes their behaviour? Idiots. Bu the school was nothing like this. Everybody just let you get on with things, and if you did cock up, your failure was met only with a laugh, a smile and comment along the lines of, “Oh well, not to worry.” Under those kind of circumstances do you think I ever made the same mistake twice? Of course not. Not like in the gulag that was my last work place. Working at that place was only one step removed from working for the evil empire in star wars. I probably wasn’t far off having Darth Vader force choke me for my minor slip ups.

It’s nice to finally have a nice experience of work. I was beginning to think that jobs were simply meant to be unpleasant and torturous. This has at least restored my faith in work and human nature a little. The kids are still little shits though. I like working in a school, but I’m not altogether sure about teaching at the moment. I’m not exactly certain that I’m confident enough to stand up in front of a class of children, all of whom are just waiting to pounce on me should I show the slightest weakness. Actually, put like that it sounds a little like my last job, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be that bad. Still, if I can make it in to the course through clearing I’ll definitely go. It’ll allow me to add another string to my bow and give me a steady, guaranteed income for the 9 months of training. Plus, should I move away, I’ll have some peace and quiet for writing. On that subject, I’m also considering a journalism course, but since that’ll actually cost money, I’m not so sure about it. I know that, ultimately, I’d love to be a writer, but I’m not entirely sure, at this point, that journalism is the right route to take. Still, at lest not having a job at the moment is giving me time to decide. Having a little time to write also helps.

Well, my battery is showing that I only have about 10 minutes left (though it’s frequently wrong. At 0% I often manage to get another 15-20 minutes and today I’ll probably eek a little more time out of it owing to the fact that I’ve switched off my Wi-Fi), so it’s almost time to pack up and go.

Has working at the library been a good idea? Will I manage to finish the first draft of my film if I keep working here over the next few weeks (or for however long it is that I remain unemployed)? Well, firstly I’m probably going to give Rayners Lane library a try tomorrow. Rayners Lane is certainly closer (I only walked here today because I had to pay in a cheque and Harrow has my closest HSBC Bank) and I’m hoping it’ll be a fair bit quieter too (though I’m actually getting used to the small children’s constant chatter that seems to be rapidly turning in to an argument). I’m certainly going to have to get used to typing again too since the fingers on my left hand are now starting to really ache. Could I cope with this for the whole day? Actually it wouldn’t be so bad. At Rayners Lane I could certainly do a morning stint, head home to recharge (my laptop with electricity and me with lunch) and then come back in the afternoon to continue working for a couple of hours. Actually that doesn’t sound so bad. Plus I won’t have to worry about an alarm clock since my agency seems intent on calling me a little after 8.30 every morning so as to as me inane questions like, as they did this morning, “Are you still available for work?”. Of course I bloody well am. What kind of a stupid question is that? And why did it need to be asked at 8.34am?

So, in conclusion, coming to the library to write is definitely a good idea. I’ll actually get a sense of achievement from having actually, ahem, achieved something worthwhile. Plus it’ll get me out of the house for much of the day and thus prevent me from incurring large does of moaning from Mum. Finally it’ll keep me in the habit of working (even if it’s for no money), which can only be a good thing. Oh, and if I do decide to occasionally come to Gayton Library it’ll provide me with the exercise I so clearly need. It would be nice to be a touch more svelte. At least then I’d feel better, look better, and feel like I had a touch more to offer to any prospective girlfriend/casual shag.

I’ve just noticed that the mother actually left her two annoying brats up here alone whilst she left the library. That’s terribly irresponsible behaviour. Then again it’s probably to be expected from .someone who clearly lacks any kind of consideration/

Ok, let’s see how this lasts for, but I’m going to give this routine a go.

1. Wake up at around 9.30-10am. Exercise (weights and sit-ups) and have breakfast.

2. Head to the library and write until my battery runs out (or until I get hungry if I’m actually allowed to plug my laptop in).

3. Go back for lunch and recharge my battery (If necessary).

4. Head back to the library until it’s time to go home for dinner.

5. Do some miles on my exercise bike whilst watching a Film/TV show in my laptop. I’m really glad I bought a laptop now. Worth every penny.

Well, at least I can give it a go for the week and see if it works out. Maybe at the end of it I’ll have a finished screenplay and a healthy body. Worst case scenario I’ll feel a little healthier through walking and I’ll have got away from mum for the day.

Right. 1% battery life. Time to go. Shame, I actually wanted to stay longer. I think this working at the library thing may actually work out. Now for the long walk back home.

Still Busy

2007-06-20T00:26:00.000+01:00

I had a bit of a hectic weekend. An early start on Saturday (12pm is early for a Saturday) was necessitated by my participation in a Clapham based treasure hunt. I’d hoped we were going to be able to make up a team of four, but as things turned out, only myself and my friend who’d told me about it, were able to make it. I was actually a little shocked that nobody else wanted to come. Firstly it was, at least, something different to do. It wouldn’t simply be a night out at the pub. Secondly it looked like fun. And it was. Sure we got rained on a few times and yes, we only managed to come 17^th out of 21 teams (I think a lack of local knowledge played a part. Now that we’ve walked most of the way around Clapham I’m sure we’ll do better next year) but it was al still a lot of fun. In many ways, walking around and solving clues kind of made it feel like a Graphic Adventure from days of yore (sorry, geeky comment I know). After the first question I actually thought that we’d do an awful lot worse than we did, especially since we’d managed to completely fail to follow the predetermined route. In our defence we thought it logical to answer question no. 1 first and didn’t really notice that there was a red route marked on the map. Actually we had a fairly good stab at answering the first question, considering the fact that half of it was missing. The question had consisted of a clue and an equation that needed to be solved to work out where to go to get the answer. Unfortunately part of the equation was missing so that it didn’t actually look like an equation at all. And that’s why we managed to waste 20 minutes walking up and down a street desperately trying to work out the answer to a question that we could, as it turned out, only answer through blind luck. At least it turned out that we weren’t as big a pair of idiots as we initially thought.

Oh, and I also managed to properly meet the girl my friend is currently seeing. She was actually one of the organisers though he didn’t tell me who she was until after we’d left her company. I managed to properly meet her at the drinks at The Microbar afterwards. She seemed really nice. I finally got home a little before 12am and went to bed, absolutely knackered. But I wasn’t going to be able to rest for long. The next day I was off to see, amongst others, Kaiser Chiefs at the O2 Wireless festival in Hyde Park.

I woke up the next day, still tired from the events of the day before. Luckily I’d had the foresight to download a copy of the previous nights Dr Who just before I went to bed. Since I wasn’t meeting up until 3pm I’d have plenty of time to watch it whilst I ate breakfast. Of course, no matter how much time I have I always end up rushing to get ready, and that morning was no exception. Despite my customary unpreparedness I still managed to make it to Marble Arch Station (TFL, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to close the whole Piccadilly line, including Hyde Park Station, for the weekend) more or less on time. That’s more than could be said for my friend, who kept me waiting another 15 minutes. Ah well, I can’t complain, it was because of him that we’d managed to get half price tickets, £23 instead of £46. Besides, I had to get some cash out. Central London is full of cash machines, but is one within five minutes walking distance of Marble Arch Station. After buying a couple of 500ml bottles of Coke at Superdrug (2 for £1.40 instead of 95p each. I couldn’t resist) I gave up my search for an ATM and waited for my friend. It turned out that he was in need of cash, so we both set off on our quest for a cash machine. I really can’t believe that there aren’t any within a 10 or 15 minute walk of the park. Unbelievable. Eventually we found and HSBC bank. I’d initially assumed that it was some sort of heat induced hallucination. No way could we have finally found somewhere to get cash. As it turned out, we hadn’t. The bank was bereft of an external cash machine. Our quest continued. Finally we found some sort of Arabic bank. Wary that they might charge some sort of fee for cash withdrawals we ended up taking a trip across and a bit up the road to the Natwest. At last we had our money. Walking back, my friend noticed something odd. All of the newsstands sold only foreign papers, not a News of the world or a Sunday Times on view anywhere. Very strange. Perhaps we’d stepped through a portal and into some strange foreign land with no ATMs. Perhaps we’d stepped through another to make it back to our country, resplendent in all its bank-having glory. Or maybe not. Maybe that’s just nonsense. There’s no such think as a trans-continental portal. Still, I have a friend who has a theory about Ikea. My friend thinks that there is, in fact, only one Ikea in existence. All the other sites are simply gateways, or portals that teleport you to the solitary store. It would certainly explain why there are some many people speaking in foreign languages inside each store.

Anyway, I digress. After we’d got our money we headed off to meet my friend’s friend, who actually had the tickets. As it turned out, the tickets were stored as a sort of barcodey thing MMS message on my friend’s friend’s phone. It wasn’t actually a barcode, more a sort of 1cm square thing with a randomly pixelated pattern on it. Scanners read the pattern and allowed us to gain entry to the event. Quite cool, and quite high tech, but I do miss not having a printed ticket stub as a memento of the day.

We walked inside the walled area that played host to the festival and immediately saw two things. Firstly, a beer tent that sold, quite moderately priced Tuborg beer, something I hadn’t had since my trip to Copenhagen a few years ago. For £3 a pint, I expected it to be terribly watered down, but it was actually quite tasty. This, I thought, was a good omen. The second think we saw was an array of cash machines. Shit. Sure they would have charged us an extortionate amount to get at our money, but it would have saved our odyssey across the bank free wilderness of Hyde Park’s surrounding streets. Anyway, after joining up with another friend and his girlfriend, we got some beer and extortionately priced food (there had to be a catch and £6 for a burger was it. I actually went for the less wallet busting £3 spicy potato wedges with all the ketchup I could fit in my plastic tray. I went a little bit crazy with the condiments, but when don’t I) we found a place to sit. An orange jumpsuit wearing Japanese band were leaping about excitedly on stage. Not bad, but possibly a bit too manic for the first act. Of course they weren’t the first act. The day was, after all, already four hours old by the time we got in. Anyway, the orange jump-suited guys were followed by Mumm-Ra (Named, I assume, after the bad guy in Thunder cats), a band who’s songs I heard a little on XFM. Not bad, but not all that memorable. Unlike Pigeon Detectives, who were absolutely brilliant. As soon at the Mumm-Ra set ended there was a mass exodus from the main stage to the XFM tent where they were playing. Demand to see the ‘Detectives (or maybe the Pigeons) was so high that they had to turn people away from the tent. They played a great set and put on a good performance. They really seemed to be communicating with the crowd. There was even time for a bit of a sing-along. Throughout the 35minutes they were on stage they consistently proved that they were a band to watch out for. After they finished it was time for the last two acts, Editors and Kaiser Chiefs.

If I’d have written a review of Kaiser Chief’s latest single, “Everything is average nowadays” it would have simply read “Q.E.D”. That’s until I saw them perform at the wireless festival where they flagrantly failed to make their own point. They were, in fact, nothing short of spectacular. The animated antics of Ricky Wilson were in total contract to Editors who were about as interesting to look at as five static blokes playing instruments. That’s not to say that they didn’t playa good set, they just didn’t look entirely comfortable on such a large stage. Of course I did spend an awful lot of my time looking at my friend, who’d come along with his new special lady. That sound, in some way, twisted, but I can assure you that it wasn’t. I was mesmerised only by my friend who, throughout pretty much every song, simply stood, peering up at the stage as if straining to see what was happening but couldn’t quite make out what all the fuss was about. Obviously this kind of behaviour induced my other friend and me to hurl empty beer cups at him. I scored a direct, albeit only to his back, whilst my friend managed hit him with a cunningly crafted (or exceedingly lucky) ricochet shot which bounced of the ginger noggin of an innocent bystander and caught my friend on the back of his head. He did at least become slightly more lively during the ‘ Chiefs (chief’s performance of “I predict a riot though I suspect that his limited bouncing was more as a result of trying to remain upright when faced with the problem of a near riotously jubilant crowd who clearly had no time whatsoever for inactive bystanders.

I like festivals and gigs because everyone’s so friendly. I did get a little upset, however, when somebody said that I didn’t look very Rock and Roll. I was, initially a little perturbed, I almost let it ruin my weekend (I tend to dwell on irrelevant details and minor critiques on my character and appearance, perhaps because I’m actually a touch self obsessed and narcissistic as well as being, conversely, quite insecure.), but then I thought of Hunter S. Thompson. He didn’t exactly look Rock and Roll, did he? Take the image we get of him from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” He most certainly doesn't look cool. Basically, he looks like what he is, a writer. Despite all the though, he was, without a doubt, Rock and Roll. Perhaps even more so because he didn’t conform to any self-consciously cool image. He was who he was. The guy got his remains shot out of a cannon by Johnny Depp for fuck’s sake. If that’s not Rock and fucking Roll I don’t know what is.

Anyway, it was a great weekend, but I was unbelievably knackered at the end of it. Shame, since I had to go to work the next day. Let me put it this way, it was not an easy week, and the quiet weekend in that followed was extremely welcome.

Busy

2007-05-29T09:51:00.000+01:00

I seem to have neglected my blog over the last month. Sorry to anybody who was hoping for some more regular updates. The irony is, that any time my life gets busy and I therefore have something to write about, I simply don't have the time to blog. I think this may be the first time over about the last 3 weeks that I haven't had my day filled from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. Firstly there was the whole thing about redecorating my room. Initially, the idea was to replace my carpet with real oak flooring. It was on special offer at Wickes and since it was almost 1/4 of the usual price it was too tempting to miss. Especially considering how worn my carpet is, especially right by my desk. Of course, doing my flooring meant that all my things had to be moved out of my room, and, given how much stuff I have, that was something of a Herculean task. The idea was that I could move my desk and TV into the spare room and, temporarily, use that as my bedroom. Things didn't exactly work out unfortunately. My desk and TV fit in the spare room just fine, but when it came to actually sleeping on the bed... Lets just say that as soon as I lay down on the bed I sunk in to it. There was absolutely no way that I could sleep in (and I really do mean "in") such a knackered bed. So, I had to continue to sleep in my room. My room with nothing in it but a bed. So, every night, I had to bring in a little bedside table with enough room for a lamp, an alarm clock and a place to put my laptop at night (I was using it to watch downloaded video file before going to sleep). Of course, being me, I had to have a TV in there too, so out came the little 14" TV on a little wheeled table. Then, the following morning, everything had to be moved out again (bed excluded) to make way for the decorating. Oh, and before any floor could be laid, it was decided that the wallpaper on the ceiling (that just sounds odd) had to be stripped, have the cracks filled in, sanded and then repainted. Of course I was the one who had to start the work on my own, because certain other parties who had promised to help, didn't want to work on a Sunday. Anyway, it finally looked like we were in a position to lay the floor there were murmurings about replacing the wallpaper too. Those murmurings quickly turned to screams when, completely by accident, my mum managed to rip off part of the existing wallpaper. All of this meant that I was without a proper room for a little over 2 weeks. A little over a week after that I've only just finished moving my stuff (most of it anyway) back in to my room. Of course then came all the extra superfluous little touches that somehow became essential to the completion of my room. New curtains (the blue ones were too dark. Apparently) new sheets (to match the curtains) and a few new storage units; essential because apparently I was no longer allowed to have any fixed shelves on the wall. This, as you can imagine, drove me mad. I spend most of my time in my room. It's my place, the only place in the house where I can be semi-insulated from all the other crap that's gong on around me. Of course it's not really my room now. Sure, I wanted a new floor, but my space is now decorated with wallpaper I didn't choose, curtains I didn't need and a complete lack of anything (DVDs and CDs aside) that really has anything to do with me. I can't even put up my Mallrats poster; ironically, because of the new picture rail it there isn't enough vertical space for it. Still, at least the door shuts (now that the door's back on) and I can, to a certain extent, keep everything else outside.

Of course, everything was exacerbated by what happened next. A few days in to my rooms refurbishment, just when I'd gone past the point of no return, I got a call from my agency. They had a temp job for me in Heston. Usually I'd have just told them that it was too far away and that I wasn't interested. However, this job required me to work in a school reception. Since, a the time, I was looking at doing a PGCE course (I won't be, on a purely logistical basis. At least not this year. 3 out of 4 university's have thus far turned me down. It looks like they were all filled up a few months ago.), so some experience working in a school would have been invaluable. So, within the first week I'd pretty much decided that I didn't want to be a teacher. Maybe it's just that the kids at that school are little shits, but there's no way that I'd want to spend my days with a bunch of ill mannered, semi-literates. Maybe I just had this completely unrealistic Dead Poets Society/Public school image of teaching (I'm not sure why. I didn't go to public school and I've never watched Dead Poets Society). Even the good kids are rude little bastards. Nope, teaching is not for me. Well, maybe I could have stomached it if I were a university lecturer, but we all know that's not a possibility.

So, at the end of the day, all I'm left with is a crappy, dull admin job that pays badly and finishes at the end of July. Of course, what I wasn't told was that my services wouldn't be required for the whole of the half term week, which is why I find myself, once more temporarily on Holiday. Yep, a weeks holiday was exactly what I needed right now.

Actually, that's sort of true-ish. Last week was particularly stressful, since I had an interview with a publishing company on Thursday. It looks like a great company and a cool place to work (they're the company that publish Record Collector. No the best music magazine around, but still...), but the job itself was just more boring Admin/Customer service stuff. Not all that different to my last job really, except the pays better and the hours were even worse, being as they were, from 8.30am until 6pm. Anyway, they seemed to really want someone who really wanted to be in the role for years to come, and that's certainly not me. Seriously, did they ever think that someone like me would be interested in staying in something that was obviously so dead end? There's no point whatsoever in me taking a job that provides no prospects of advancement. Still, they said they'd let me know some time this week or next, but to be honest I hope I don't get it. I'd be far too tempted to take the job, only to find myself in a years time, right back where I was when I quit my last crappy job. A bad move then. Shame though. i was really hoping I could use it as some sort if stepping stone into professional writing. It looks like, from what I was told at the interview by the companies MD and by my agency at a prep session the day before, that was never a possibility. Still, it's made me think that doing a journalism course might be a good idea. I'd certainly find it to be a far more rewarding career than anything I've done to date, even if the pay's meant to be crap. I could jut do with a job that doesn't make me fear the alarm clock every morning, regardless of remuneration. Besides, I think it's something that I might actually be good at; which, as far as jobs are concerned, has to be something of a novelty. They main problem is the cost. Where as with teaching I'd have been paid to do the course, with journalism I'd have to use a fair chunk of my savings (about 10%) just to pay the fees. Still, I guess it would be a worthwhile investment in my future (provide that things work out of course). Otherwise I've just got a lifetime of crappy admin roles to look forward to. Having spent two weeks doing filing and data entry I don't think I'd be able to manage a particularly long lifespan if all I had to look forward to was admin. And it's only fear that it would go nowhere that stopped me before. Ironically my inaction has led me down the path I feared anyway. Maybe some research in to courses is in order.

Oh, and today i was supposed to have a telephone interview for yet another job that sounded like it would be a nightmare. Some admin, inputting data into spreadsheets and a little bit of accounting stuff. Really not me. I got a call today that 8.30 this morning from my agency to tell me that the interview had been cancelled since they'd offered the job to someone on Friday. Maybe that's not a good portent for my future with this agency. Are they clued up to my total hopelessness when it come to jobs already?

Not good

2007-04-25T01:26:00.000+01:00

It's been a while hasn't it? Well, what to say. Things were looking up recently. I sent off my application for teaching courses, got my reference from my former screenwriting lecturer (albeit 2 weeks after it was requested due to the fact that I asked for it whilst the University was closed down for the holidays). I've had some great nights out, the highlights being drinks with an old university friend who'd been abroad for years, and a great party in Islington.

I even had a good experience at a recruitment agency today. Bizarrely they seemed like nice, friendly people. Even more bizarrely they were actually quite impressed with me. They actually felt that they might have a job for me, albeit one that's not all that well paying. Still, it's £1.5K better than my last best paid job.

But all of that means noting, because I heard today that I didn't get in to my first choice of university, Reading. This means that I probably suck extremely badly and I suspect that I won;'t get in to the others either. I'm not sure it actually matters because Reading was the only uni to guarantee places in halls for PGCE students. It was also the only one I had any special desire to go to. So, basically I'm fucked once again.

Once more, I have proof that I'm destined for... well... nothing.

God, did I ever really see myself as a teacher? I'm not sure. I was beginning to waver over the last few days. Perhaps it was just nerves. Perhaps I thought that maybe I didn't have what it takes to be a teacher? Regardless, I definitely wanted to do the course. Mostly I definitely wanted to go to Reading. Was it because my application was bad? perhaps it was my degree result? Perhaps my old lecturer gave me a bad reference. Maybe it was because I didn't do a degree in English? I can see that doing a degree in history was the worst mistake I ever made. It's clearly going to cause me trouble for the rest of my life. But what the hell can I do about it now? I'm fucked. I'm really, really fucked.

Everyone else I know is doing so much better than me, and the way things are going, they always will. Am I ever going to get anywhere? Do I have a hope in hell when nobody seems willing to give me a chance.

God, how bad would I have felt if I'd had a shitty day at the recruitment consultants too? I expect I'd have been suicidal. At the very least I'm sure I'd have been contemplating a vigorous bout of self harm.

I should have known. Nothing ever goes well for me for long. It all goes shit in the end. Now I just have to wait for the rest of the rejections to come in.

What the fuck am I going to do now?

All I can do I guess. Watch TV. That's what I'm doing now and probably for the rest of my pathetic life.

Maybe I'll write some more tomorrow. I was always going to write something this week. I just expected to be way more upbeat.

Become a recruitment consultant. Annoy the world.

2007-03-13T01:00:00.000Z

The day after the Graduate Recruitment Company debacle, at 8.44am (I know, I checked the clock) I got another call from a guy who called last week to find out if I was interested in working as a recruitment consultant. “Oh did I already call you. Sorry I must have forgotten to take you off my list” he said. A lie, I’m sure. He then went on to ask if I’d changed my mind. He even said that they might have a job at a branch more local to me, Watford. Having had such a bad experience the day before and feeling somewhat demoralised I wasn’t prepared to dismiss him straight away. “How about I call you back in a couple of days time?” And he did. And, rather foolishly, I agreed to an interview on Monday. He’d already sent me over some details about the job, so I gave them a proper look. It really wasn’t me. Basically it was everything I’d hated about my previous job multiplied to the nth degree. But what other option did I have?

A short while later my phone rang once again. It was a recruitment consultant wondering if I was interested in a much better job working for a Media Monitoring company near the Tower of London. She described the job. Basically I’d be reading newspapers and checking the internet for stories about whatever client I was working for. It sounded great. I was definitely interested and eagerly awaited her promised email containing more information. She asked me to look it over and give her a call back by the end of the day. It didn’t come. To make matters worse my email started playing up. I called back. It turned out that she hadn’t sent it. I waited. It didn’t come. Thursday turned to Friday and I called back. She claimed that she couldn’t find the job spec and that she’d send it to me when she was resent it by the company. She did, however, say that they were very interested in me. Finally today (after I called twice) I got the information and a promise to arrange an interview for me on Wednesday. Hopefully she’ll call back tomorrow. Still, I’ve had to jump through a few hoops to get there.

Anyway, in the meantime I still l had this interview for the recruitment consultant job. When I’d called him up on Friday to make sure that the interview was still on, he’d promised to call me on Sunday at 4pm to talk me through the interview. By Sunday, when the phone call finally came, I’d had serious doubts about the job. It really wasn’t for me. I’d just be miserable. After consulting a number of friends I’d decided to be honest about my misgivings when he called. I was pretty up front with the guy about how I didn’t think the job was right for me. I first asked him what a typical day would be like as I figured this would be a good way of illustrating why I wouldn’t be suitable. Alarm bells started ringing when he told me that my regular hours would be from 8am -6PM (so you can bet that, in reality, I’d have to stay a fair bit later). He continued to describe what seemed like a nightmare day for me and as he spoke I was becoming even more convinced that this simply wasn’t for me. By the time he told me my basic salary (£16k, with commission not kicking in until after 3 months, by which point, if some miracle had happened and I’d got the job, I’m sure I’d probably have been sacked), I was utterly convinced that I would hate the job, even resent it in the same way I resented my last job for its low pay and long hours. This job was, just from the point of view of pay and hours, would have been even worse than my last. I would be spending even more of my time on the phone being interrupted by callers, and under pressure to hit targets. I’d probably have had a heart attack within 6 months.

So I told him the job wasn’t for me. Quite emphatically in fact, yet I couldn’t get him to say that he thought it would be best if I didn’t come in. Although he admitted that if I said all that I had said on the phone to him to the guy who would be interviewing me, I wouldn’t get the job. None the less, he kept insisting that I should go to the interview anyway. It didn’t seem to matter that I’d just told him how bad I was in a sales environment and how much I really wouldn’t like it. I emphasised the point by saying that, had I seen the job advertised, I wouldn’t have even considered applying for it. I simply don’t get a buzz out of making sales.

I even gave him a way of making the job appeal to me. I said, “I suppose you could argue that it’s a worthwhile job because you’re helping to find people work.”

“Nobody” according to him “does this sort of job to help people.”

By now, any shred of doubt I had in my mind about not taking the interview had evaporated. He was giving me a hard, but completely untargeted sales pitch for some reason. I felt sure I’d made that perfectly clear, yet he continued trying to say that it was still a good idea to go to the interview. “I can see you’re in two minds about the job” he said at one point. He extolled the virtues of his company, saying that they weren’t like any other recruitment agency. Oddly enough his hard sell approach to forcing the job on me made it clear that they were just like any other Recruitment Agency. Maybe they were a little worse.

We left it that I would call today if I wanted to cancel the interview.

I called, but he wasn’t available, so I left a message and sent an email, asking that the interview be cancelled.

It really is odd that he spent so long trying to convince me to come along when I clearly felt that I was, in so many ways, completely wrong for the job. I even said that I felt it would be a waste of time going but he shrugged this off, telling me that it wouldn’t.

I can’t exactly worry about turning down today’s interview. I didn’t want the job and would never have got it. If I had it would have just made me miserable.

Anyway, I’ve come to an important conclusion. Recruitment consultants really are full of shit. At least now I know that I’m completely unsuited to being a Recruitment Consultant. I’m just not that much of an arsehole.

“Hello there. I was wondering if I could completely waste your time.”

2007-03-13T00:58:00.000Z

I do feel like I need to find something I can do in case the teaching doesn’t work out and I don’t make it onto the course. Besides, even if I do make it onto the course I’ve got another 6 months before it starts. And minus-no money in the bank. Clearly I need a job to take me through until September. Clearly recruitment consultants are the, slightly unpalatable, answer. At the beginning of February I emailed and called about 15-20 agencies. None gave me a particularly positive response. The guy at Hudson at least gave me some pretty good advice and the lady at Australasian talent (odd name I know, but recommended by a friend) suggested that she’d have some basic admin jobs if I was “desperate”. However, y far the worst response came from the Graduate Recruitment Company. After I’d submitted my CV via email they sent me a text requesting that I call. Straight away I got on the phone. To be frank, the lady at the GRC was pretty rude. She asked me what I wanted to do. I spelled it out pretty clearly. She said we don’t handle that sort of thing. I said that I’d be happy to do pretty much anything, perhaps something not dissimilar to my last job. She had a go at me for not being focused enough. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I was simply being flexible. Her whole attitude was patronising and condescending. She advise that I look thorough their website and apply for a job if I liked the look of it. Basically I was left with the overwhelming impression that they couldn’t be bothered. Arses.

Last month I had an extremely negative conversation with them, which is why I was so surprised that they called me back. I thought that they’d had a change in attitude.

Of course when, a month later, they called me back and asked me to come in, because they “may be able to find some jobs that I could do” I jumped at the chance. “They must have had a change of heart”, I thought. After all, they had my CV, so they should have known everything about me already. So, last Monday I went in for an interview with one of their consultants. To put it mildly, it was an unpleasant experience and a complete waste of time. From what I can gather they apparently just wanted to be nasty to me in person.

I arrived 15 minutes early, as requested, and filled in some forms. All the reception staff were pretty, young and very attractive, so I was looking forward to an interview with someone similar. As it turned out, my interviewer was almost entirely dissimilar. I’d been asked to wait in a room, fill out my forms and await my interviewer. About 20 minutes later she entered the small room. She was huge. I mean really fat. She made the already small room seem tiny. She was wearing a very low cut v-neck top which showed off (that’s really not the right phrase) her large, but saggy breasts. I tried to keep my eyes on her face but it was hard to stop my gaze from falling downwards on a couple of occasions. Not, I should say, because I found her breasts titillating. Really looking at her boobs had more in common with slowing down to rubberneck a particularly nasty car accident. Things didn’t get any more pleasant.

The cow made me feel as if I had no options. Deep down I know she’s wrong, but it installed in me a nagging doubt. I still can’t work out why she bothered if all she was going to do was pick me apart. She attacked me, my work history and my education for the whole interview. Perhaps it was all under the guise of seeing how I’d be in an interview, but, when it comes down to it, it wasn’t an interview for a job, it was an interview for an agency, so I’m not sure why she was spending so much of her time telling me how unmarketable I was by telling me all the reasons why I wouldn’t get a job as opposed to concentrating on how I could get one. Basically she turned every positive into a negative. A diverse range of qualifications and experience was, according to her, a bad thing. That was, as far as she was concerned, an un-debateable absolute. After having told me all the reasons why I would find it hard to get a job she went on to criticise me for having a gap in my employment since I left my last job. She, without a hint of irony, went on to ask, “Employers are crying out for candidates, so why haven’t you found anything?” She’d initially got me in to discuss possibilities in the technology sector, but then spent much of the interview telling me that I’d have a hard time against the competition who were straight out of university with Computer science degrees. If she thought that why did she bother to call me in at all? Does she just like wasting people’s time? The fact that she continued by making a comment about my age, which she followed up by saying that “of course, we’re not allowed to discriminate based on age.” And continuing by making it perfectly clear that age was a major factor in their rejection of me. In fact, having thought about it, I wonder whether every other negative comment was made simply to get her out of her allusion to age being a major factor on rejecting me. Otherwise the whole thing was extraordinarily nonsensical and contradictory.

She was even somewhat patronising. I was quite willing to do anything for which my skills would be a match and she attacked me for being unsure of what I wanted to do. As it all drew to a close and she’d told me they really couldn’t be bothered to help, she told me that “I should go and see a career service. Perhaps one at your university.” Given her previous comment alluding to the fact that I might be too old to get accepted by the agency I responded by saying that “So, you don’t think that I’m too old to go back to my university’s career service” She didn’t really have anything to say to that.

She actually said that my CV was too unfocussed to get anything at the moment. When I suggested that I could work on it, and re-focus it, I was virtually dismissed. Having said, just moments before, that my CV’s lack of focus was a big problem, she was now almost immediately saying (and I’m not remember it exactly as she said it, but it’s pretty close) “it will take more than a bit of paper to get you a job.” Oh, on the subject of CVs, she’d asked me to bring along a hard copy of my CV as well as email her with an updated version. In front of her was the old version of my CV she had received a month earlier. At no point did she ask me for the hard copy, meaning that I was carrying around a bag containing my CV for absolutely nothing. The whole thing really seemed like she wasn’t bothering.

I really thought that agencies were supposed to help you find work, not tell you why you’ll never manage to find a job. Ever.

You can see why I was so upset about the interview. It seemed like she’d simply decided to hate me on principal. She said, during the course of the interview that she had wanted to follow up her degree and masters in English with a PhD, but hadn’t been able to afford it. She said that she didn’t know what she’d have done if she hadn’t become a recruitment consultant. Basically she came across as being a bitter, patronising, condescending bitch. In other words she had all the attributes you’d expect to find in a recruitment consultant.

Those who can’t...

2007-03-13T00:56:00.000Z

A few days later I drove up to Reading to meet a friend for lunch at a pub near where he works. I hadn’t seen him for a while so it was good to catch up> the food was pretty good too, and pretty substantial too, despite the fact that we’d both ordered “reduced size” portions. I shudder to think how large the regular portions would be. Of course, as with any friend I don’t see every week (and in fact most that I do) the subject of job hunting came up. At this point it really wasn’t going very well (unless you count random emails from companies who saw my CV on monster and want to offer me jobs as a computer programmer or Java scripter just because I have an A-Level in Computer Science, as going well.) This is where the potentially life changing bit comes in. My friends’ boyfriend is a teacher. He suggested that might be a good career move for me. He told me about how you could get a huge bursary (£9000 for the year as it turns out) just for doing the course. I thought about all the holiday time. He told me that it was a fulfilling career, something that would give me a sense of achievement. I thought about what I could do with 13 weeks holiday a year. He said that, as a key worker, I’d have access to affordable housing and get a salary that would allow me to buy my own home. This appealed more than the abundance of holiday time. The last five years that I’ve spent stuck in this boring, mediocre little suburb have bee torturous. I long to actually have a proper life of my own, something that was never going to happen whilst I stuck living in the same house as my mother in Harrow, the closest London equivalent to Tatooine. If there is a bright spot in London, Harrow is the place furthest from it. (For some reason it feels good to reference/paraphrase Star Wars.). So, teaching could offer me a good, fulfilling job, where I could feel like part of the solution, not part of the problem (the problem being selfish and extreme capitalism and the sort of people who engage in nefarious, dishonest practices. Like all my previous employers). Not only that, I’d get a decent salary (decent in the sense that it’s far higher than anything I’d got before), and have enough spare time in the holidays to keep writing. To be frank I doubt that I’ll ever manage to fit in at most commercial organisations. Making somebody else rich was never a particularly strong motivating factor for me to work. I’m not even that bothered about being rich my self. Just comfortable. Sure I’d like my own house (and, with house prices being what they are you kind of do need to be rich to own one.) and a nice car (I keep mentioning cars and driving. They’ll be something more specific on all that later), but I’ve never really had much enthusiasm for accruing wealth just to put a few more zero’s on my bank balance. Honestly, being happy and doing something that I think is worthwhile is far more important to me.

Of course I’m quite scarred about the idea of teaching. I’d initially discounted it because I thought I’d make a lousy teacher. Admittedly this was based entirely on my inability to teach my mum how to use a computer so that wasn’t exactly a firm basis for saying that I’d be awful. But, when it comes down to it, I’d really love the opportunity to impart knowledge to people. To educate them and shape their minds. All that stuff. I decided that I’d probably make a pretty good teacher. But what to teach. I certainly wouldn’t want to do primary school. I really couldn’t stand being around kids who know absolutely nothing. No, far better to teach secondary school and be around a bunch of kids who think they know absolutely everything. I’ve decided that I’d like to teach English. I ended up regretting not doing English at university. Doing history was a bit of a mistake and, I think in retrospect, I let my Dad influence me in my choice of degree too much. I’d actually justified my choice of a History degree in a purely logical way. I did well at A-Level and GCSE, so I was bound to get a good degree. Sure, I liked history, and I got pretty good grades for GCSE and A-Level (both As’ in case you’re wondering), but I get the impression that my interest and motivation to do well was influenced by my desire to please my dad. Once he died, and I went to university to read (as they persistently say on University Challenge) History, I lost all motivation. I just wasn’t that interested. Oddly enough I’ve realised that I would have been much better off doing a degree in something that I got Bs in, like English. After all, to get a B for English I didn’t even have to bother trying. How well could I have done if I’d put a bit of effort into it? In fact the more and more I heard about English degrees in my third year (I was going out with a girl who, along with some of her friends’, studied English) the more and more I realised that I’d chosen the wrong subject. Of course by then it was far too late. I only had a couple of months before my degree was over.

Of course to redress the balance (and stay at university for another year with my younger girlfriend), I decided to do my MA in Film Screenwriting. I somehow cajoled my way onto the course and all was well in the world. Until the girl dumped me. And then, when I finished the course I still didn’t feel like I’d made up for doing so badly ion my first degree. Clearly doing so badly at my History degree is going to haunt me forever. I felt as though I wasn’t good enough, and, perhaps, that’s caused more difficulties in getting a job than the actual result of my degree. In fact I thought that having an MA would imply to employers that I’d actually done well in my first degree. I found out the other day, at an interview with a recruitment consultant that it worked. She really thought that I’d got a 2.1 (at least that’s what she wrote in her notes, and I wasn’t going to correct her). I’ve actually got more to say about the recruitment consultant, but that’s for another section.

Anyway, perhaps doing this teaching course is simply another vein attempt to make up for my bad degree. But even if that’s the case at least it should help me to get many of the things that I’ve wanted for the past few years since I left university. I’ll hopefully have a worthwhile job, a good salary, plenty of holiday time and the means to buy my own place. Surely it’s worth the risk. It’s not even a particularly great risk since I’ll be paid to do the course. Not only that, I think, I’ll probably move into halls whilst I do it, so I’ll be able to get out of Harrow for a while. Then, at the end of it, I’ll have another qualification. It really is Win, Win, Win.

Now, I just have to get around to figuring out where I want to go (My first choice is definitely Reading. I’m not entirely sure why, though they were my original insurance choice for my first degree). Basically I have to make my choices based on where I want to go and where I’m most likely to get in. I think that fact that I have such a bad degree in History may harm my chances of getting on to an English course, so I have to be a little pragmatic and include a few ex-polytechnics in with my choices.

I’m pretty sure that this is the right course of action for me. Besides, it’ll be nice to be a student again. I wonder if students still get a 10% discount at HMV.

It's been a while

2007-03-13T00:54:00.000Z

Wow, it’s been ages since I contributed anything to the blog. The irony is, when lots of stuff’s been going on in my life I don’t tend to have the time to blog it all. That said, I get the feeling that making time to blog it will be beneficial. Once I’ve written about it I’m sure I’ll be able to think more clearly.

So, the last couple of weeks have been pretty busy and pretty important. Well, some things weren’t al; that pivotal, but I’ll talk about them over the next few posts anyway. I’ll try to keep it vaguely chronological, but it’s mostly divided into topics. I’ll start with something frivolous.

A few weeks ago I visited a friend in Essex to, at his request, check out his Xbox 360. To be honest, it seems just like the original Xbox, only instead of being a big black box it’s now a slightly svelter white box with an external power supply unit that is, quite literally, the size of a brick. Apparently it’ll also break after a year (if anecdotal evidence is to be believed) so it’s also far more fragile. I’ve had my Xbox for a few years now, and the worst thing that’s happened is that it’s developed a slight, asthmatic wheeze when first started up. It goes away after a minute or so and then continues to operate completely normally.

None of the games look an awful lot better than regular Xbox games. Of course the reason for this is quite obvious. Whilst my friend had a new, ultra modern, ultra powerful Xbox 360 he had it hooked up to a decidedly un-modern CRT, non-HD TV, meaning that every single game was displayed in a resolution well below that which was intended. Any graphical fanciness was completely lost on the blurry old SD TV. In actual fact, the images were so un-sharp that I actually started feeling a little wonky just trying to play a game of gears of war. I don’t suppose this was helped by the fact that I had to play split screen, thus halving the screen size and effectively reducing the already woefully inadequate display resolution. It’s no wonder I had to stop. My eyes were really going funny and my head was beginning to hurt. It was becoming abundantly obvious that I was right all along about the Xbox 360. There’s no point in getting one if you don’t have an HDTV.

Oddly enough, as a result of the televisual shortcomings, all the new games held little appeal for me and I ended up spending most of my time playing Halo 2. Of course, none of the alleged enhancement made to Halo 2 for playback on the 360 were apparent because, you’ve guessed it, it wasn’t connected to an HDTV. It therefore looked exactly the same as it did on my near 5 year old Xbox. Since Halo and its many sequels are the only games I’ll probably end up playing on the 360 it really does render the purchase of a 360 completely pointless. Of course I’ll probably change my mind when I get my own, personal 360 and Halo 3 comes out, but for now, even if I had the money (which I don’t), I wouldn’t buy one. Besides, there’s supposed to be a new version coming out soon that’s black and has an HDMI port enabling it to be connected to an HDTV in a purely digital way as opposed to the many pronged analogue component approach favoured by the current model. Perhaps it won’t break down so quickly either. Of course all this is only a rumour, but I’m certainly prepared to wait and see if it’s true.

Besides, I really have stopped playing a lot of video games (though, inevitably, I’ve ended up playing Halo on the PC far too much) owing to the cancellation of my Xbox Live account, thus preventing me from playing Xbox games online and saving me up to £40 a year. I must stop playing Halo because it stops me from pursuing more worthwhile activities like writing and applying for jobs. Which neatly brings me to my next subject.

Going West

2007-02-22T16:17:00.000Z

So, they've decided to extend the Congestion Charging zone to the west. Bad idea if you ask me. I actually thought I'd fallen victim to it last night when I went to Car Giant to help a friend choose a new car. Apparently only some routes from my house to car giant actually enter the CC zone, which makes it even more confusing. It doesn't help that my satnav has no idea that I've entered the new extended zone either, and it probably never will unless I pay for updated maps. They really should provide free updates when tolls/congestion charging is introduced. Surely that's not much to ask. I realised that I might be in trouble when I drove over a "C" painted on the road. This was, in actual fact, my first and only warning of the impending CC zone. After I'd seen it there was no way I could turn around, it was far too late. The complete lack of any prior indication is a tad unfair and sneaky of you ask me. Obviously, being me, I panicked a bit wondering whether I'd done the same on the previous night's trip to Car Giant and would therefore be finned a massive £100 for daring to use the roads my car tax money is supposed to go towards maintaining. Fortunately, after a phone call to the CC phone line, I realised that the zone stops operating after 6pm. I'd crossed over after 6.30pm so I was safe. Or possibly just lucky. How many people would have been caught out by something that seems to be a deliberate trap. Besides, I was nowhere near the centre of London. Surely the new borders extend way too far to the west.

I’ve just looked at a map of the congestion charge zone. It does seem that you can stray into it quite easily if you simply turn down the wrong road since its borders are quite squiggly and random. It’s actually quite ridiculous and somewhat counter-intuitive. Now that the zone extends further west into more residential areas more people will have to pay to simply leave their houses. Of course residents get a 90% discount on the fee meaning that they can, for 80p, drive anywhere in the C Charge zone, even through Central London. This means that Central London has opened up to all the rich people (who probably didn’t care about having to pay a paltry £8 to drive into London anyway) living in places like Chelsea, Kensington and Notting Hill whilst still excluding the less well off who can’t afford the £8 charge. Yep, that Ken Livingstone’s really a class warrior. Arse. You do realise that he only takes the train into work everyday because he can’t drive (and if a friend of mine is to be believed, because he’s a raging alcoholic. But then he said the same thing about Charles Kennedy weeks before it all came out in the press so he may not be wrong).

The extension of the congestion charge zone went ahead despite the objections of countless residents and local councils. Livingstone clearly;y has too much power and misunderstands the principle of democracy. He should not be allowed to get away with this. Well, I'm certainly not going to vote for him at the next mayoral election. That said I wasn't going to anyway, what with his promise to not run as a candidate for mayor if he wasn't the official Labour candidate (he left the party and ran as an independent in the first election for London Mayor) and his subsequent defection back to labour (a man who so easily switches his loyalties clearly can't be trusted.) Not only that he wasted millions of pounds of council tax payers moneys mounting a legal challenge to the partial privatisation of the tube before simply abandoning it with no real explanation. It leaves one to wonder whether some money stuffed into unmarked brown envelope changed hands.

Plus, that also means that any traffic will be diverted around the zone, leaving the rich areas virtually free of non-residential traffic whilst the surrounding, poorer areas to cope with a vast influx of new cars traversing their formerly quieter roads.

Oddly enough, this may mean that the revenue raised from congestion charging will probably go down overall, not up. It really is idiotic. I don’t think that congestion charging in Central London (where parking is already extortionately expensive, though not enough to put off the rich people) is a bad idea, but the western extension is quite frankly ridiculous.

Clearly this is the beginning of two-tier motoring. It’ll only continue if the Government introduces their proposed pay as you go road taxation. Very soon only the rich will be able to afford to drive. And surely that's a terrible step backwards suggesting that there will never be a classless society and everything any government has ever said about having one is clearly bollocks.

I'm Going Slightly Mad

2007-02-05T16:06:00.000Z

I’ve been receiving some complaints recently (all of which technically come from the voices in my head) that my blog is full of boring, mundane bollocks. My multiple personalities really aren’t happy about this state of affairs. They’d really like me to write about something a little more interesting than my crap week job hunting.

“Why can’t you find something more interesting to write about?” They say. “In fact, why don’t you go off and actually do something more interesting than spending 6 days of the week trapped in your house” the helpfully suggest. “We’d just like to see some of the outside world once in a awhile.”

"But,” I retort “I took you all off out to Greenwich at the weekend. That’s got to qualify as going out?”

“Well yes, technically it does, but what’s the point” They ask.

“What do you mean what’s the point. Greenwich is out, it’s exciting. Well, not exciting, but its gotta be better than Harrow” I reply.

“Oh yeah, it’s better than Harrow, but what’s the fucking point of going out when you always get so pissed that you can’t remember vast portions of the evening.”

“Well, you have a point, but it’s not like I’m going to stop drinking is it? It’s the only way I can cope with the tedium of the rest of the week.”

“ Well, you could always make the rest of the week more interesting couldn’t you?”

“Would that I could, but interesting costs money and, in case you haven’t noticed, I have no job, and therefore no sodding money.”

“Well why don’t you just get a job.”

“Oh if it were that easy everybody would have one wouldn’t they.”

“Everyone does, except wasters and tramps.”

“Sorry, are you calling me a tramp.”

“ Not at all, but you could put a bit of effort into it couldn’t you.”

“Effort. Effort! I’ve put shitloads of effort into it, but everybody is fucking bollocks and doesn’t want to know. It’s not as if you’ve come up with any bright ideas is it? You just sit there in my head like inert passengers on a tourbus, gawking gormlessly at everything. You’re good at pointing out the problems, but don’t have any fucking solutions do you. Wankers.”

See, I’m clearly going a bit mad (could I be certified for transcribing a conversation with the voices in my head. Would a blog entry be enough to convince the authorities’ that I had gone completely hat stand and needed chucking in a loony bin for my own safety and the safety of others?)

Still, before the men in white coats come along I’ve git a little bit of time to finish this post. The conversation with the voices in my head did at least impart some degree of truth about my non-housebound activities; I did indeed go to Greenwich.

It was all in aid of a friend’s birthday. A friend who lives just across the tunnel from Greenwich on the Isle of Dogs. A friend who wanted to watch the Rugby, England vs. Scotland I think. Unfortunately this friend of mine is the least organised person in existence and hadn’t actually worked out if there was a pub in Greenwich that was actually playing the match. Obviously all the good pubs in Greenwich didn’t have TV’s so our more familiar haunts like The Gypsy Moth and The Admiral Hardy were immediately precluded. After wandering all around Greenwich we found two pubs playing the rugby. The birthday boy had decided that he wanted to be somewhere with lots of “fit birds”. Now in my opinion nobody should use the word “birds” when describing women. It just makes you sound like a chauvinistic moron. It’s even worse, however, when the person saying it is a public school educated toff (and I say that with the greatest affection). Then it sounds indescribably stupid. There ware only two pubs showing the game, The Mitre and The Spanish Galleon. The Mitre may have been an old mans pub, but at least it wasn’t, unlike the Spanish Galleon, an old man's pub that smelled of fish. I conveniently found myself a seat facing away from the Rugby. It’s not that I hate rugby, it’s just that it bores the crap out if me. It just seems to me that Rugby is just an excuse for ex-public school buy repressed homosexuals to grope each other under aegis of participating in a manly spectator sport. I once said that whilst observing the Royal Holloway Rugby team engaging in drinking games (clearly a form of public foreplay) at the Stumble Inn. Obviously not to the rugby players themselves. They’d probably pummel me to the ground for even suggesting that they have a predilection for man on man loving. Of I did subsequently hear that, after university a whole bunch of them came out, including one particularly insufferable wanker and former SU president who one called me gay after I tried to stop him from drunkenly trying to crack in to a friend’s girlfriend. Oh the irony. Clearly this was a man looking to be shot down. Surely the fact that she was talking to me might have suggested the possibility that the poor girl was attached (even if it wasn’t to me. Unfortunately. If memory serves me, she was extremely hot). Of course that was probably the point, part of his way of hiding him innate desire for cock. For how could he be gay if he was trying to crack on to beautiful, but tragically unavailable women? Absolute genius. Of course what does it say about me? After all, I fancied her? Oh well, I’m sure I only fancy unattainable girls just because of both my fear of commitment and my desire to keep my broken heat in a few pieces of possible. Or something. Anyway, let’s get back to Greenwich.

So, the rugby was on and I wasn’t watching was it. This next bit is going to sound indistinct owing to my decision to stop naming names. Then, as England marched on to their inevitable victory against the Scots, a work colleague of my friend turned up.

In the weeks since I last saw her a lot's happened. I’ve had mixed feelings about the whole thing owing mostly to her complicated situation. One of my main rules is to not make any kind of romantic engagements with attached women. I probably mentioned that I managed to break that rule first time out, but since I was completely unaware of the girls attached status I can hardly shoulder any blame. But, once again, I digress. My main problem was trying to work out if she fancied me. I can usually work that sort of thing out pretty quickly. And I’m usually pretty quick to exploit it too. But with her, I’m stumped. There are just too many mixed messages. When we’re out, we talk a lot and we seem to get on. She’s texted me (a lot, we had a 20 text conversation one evening), but even after all that I’m just not getting that final “go ahead” signal that would push the whole thing over the edge. Maybe I’m just misreading the whole situation because she’s from a completely different country and culture. Bah. Regardless I’ve decided not to bother. Her situation is far too complicated (beyond simply having a husband back home. There is something that allows me to put aside my moral objections should I wish. Unfortunately I can’t talk about specifics here. But that’s irrelevant since I’m not gong to do anything anyway.

So, she walked in and started talking to me. I was actually a little less talky than usual, preferring to talk to another friend about his prospective new car. Then I left him to chat with her through both drinks and dinner. Of course that’s would have provided me with the perfect opportunity to figure out exactly how she works. Unfortunately I squandered the opportunity by getting riotously drunk. Subsequently all I could say was they chatted and sat a little closer than everybody else at dinner. It all looked kind of flirty to me, but then, that was no different to how she’d been with me in the past. So, inconclusive.

After that, we went to dinner.

Dinner was nice, if a little expensive for me. We went to Tex-Mex Restaurant, Cafe Sol. I had chicken fajitas along with more alcohol; appropriately enough some bottles of sol. I also remember somehow drinking a Margarita though I have no idea why. Still, it was pretty nice. It kind of tasted like a melted strawberry Slush Puppy. Yummy.

Another pub and another drink followed as did a trip to the off licence to pick up two bottles of wine, one white and one red. Then we were off back to my friends flat to finish the evening. The red wine went quickly so I opened up the white. It taste all that good, but I just put it down to bad wine. I considered leaving it, but I’m not one to waste good (or apparently bad) alcohol.

Fortunately I was staying over, so a slow, agonising tube ride didn’t await me, at least not until the next day. Another friend was staying overt too. Now I could have remembered this bit wrong (I wasn’t exactly on top form) but the girl friend (not girlfriend) asked to stay over as well. I’m reasonably sure that my friend with the flat told her that there was no point in her staying since she only lived ten minutes away. Then, as I recall, he pretty much kicked her out. I could, of course be wrong. Retrospectively I wish I’d offered to walk her home. Had I been a little less addled it would have occurred to me to offer (maybe I did, who knows). Of course if there had been any kind of altercation I’d have inevitably been more useless than usual. Any potential assailant would have found me to be an extraordinarily easy target.

Much of what happened after that is a bit of a blur. I think I may have been a little sick (in the toilet thankfully) but I was at least competent enough to unfold the sofa bed (my roommate for the night having already collapsed on the companion non-bed sofa). I’m not usually a good sleeper, but that evening sleep came very easily. Waking up the next day however, was far from pleasant.

My head hurt, and it only got worse as the morning progressed. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the train ride home. The trip was made even more difficult by the fact that I’d agreed to relieve my friend of his old PC in the home that I might find some of the parts useful and sell the rest. It was a really good quality computer case too, made as it was, from tough steel, which obviously meant it was extremely heavy. Carrying it across London wasn’t easy, especially since I had to repress the urge to throw up every time I bent own to pick it up. The violent swaying of the train carriages didn’t help matters either and every time they jerked from side to side I felt as if I was going to vomit.

But I finally made it back. And promptly puked in the loo. Bed until about 3.30 followed. I’m never drinking so copiously on an empty(ish) stomach again.

Well, not until next week anyway.

Guest Starring Mildly Depressed and Extreme Grumpiness

2007-02-02T02:55:00.000Z

Another horrible day. I was woken up by a nice sounding lady (but aren't the all) from a recruitment agency who was just calling to let me know that they really didn't have anything suitable. Thanks for that. Being a terrible sleeper there was absolutely no way that I was going to manage to nod off again so I got up. Well, not so much got up as simply reached across my bed for my laptop switched it on, and stayed in bed for the next hour or so. After trawling through a few of my favourite websites, and checking.replying to my emails (some of which were from agencies who'd dropped me a line to let me know that they had either simply received my CV or had no interest in it, and consequently me, whatsoever) I set about looking for a few more agencies to whom I could send my CV. Some of them even get back to me the same day, though its only so that they can tell me that hey have "nothing suitable" but that they will "keep my CV on file". It's all a load of bollocks isn't it.

So the rest of the day continued in much the same vein. I'd send an agency my CV and they'd either ignore it or tell me to fuck off. I'd actually started to believe that it wouldn't be like this.

So what the fuck am I going to do? I'll have to keep trying more and more agencies, but what happens when, inevitably, they all turn me down? I'm going to end up having to go back to the first one and take their offer of a boring, mediocre job. And then what? It's becoming clear that I'm unemployable (at least as far as any good jobs are concerned), so I'm probably going to be forced to take on a string of mediocre and unfulfilling jobs for the rest of my life. I can see it all now. I'll have a bland, mediocre job, be married to a bland, mediocre woman (if I get married at all) and have a couple of bland, mediocre kids. And we'll all live in a bland mediocre house in a bland mediocre suburb of a bland mediocre city (not even a bland mediocre suburb of London like Harrow. My bland mediocre salary will make it impossible to live even on the cusp of anywhere vaguely good. I expect I'll end up in somewhere like Milton Keynes).

There will be no mystery and no excitement in my life. Just drudgery and disappointment.

So, to summarise, today I've been more than a little bit grumpy owing to lack of sleep and a tad depressed owing to lack of job. On the plus side my Mum wasn't around all day which was what gave me the chance to waste my time trying to get an agency to give a shit. Of course, inevitably she came back and it didn't take her long to start having a go at me for not looking for a job. Obviously I am, but I have no intention of telling her that. Her interference pisses me off no end, which is why I decided to keep her completely in the dark about everything job related.

Oh, one last thing a but my mum. Her stupidity and ignorance actually managed to reach such heights (or lows) as to surprise me today. Obviously she always has a baseline level of idiocy, but her comment this evening was simply off the charts. She declared that she thought that AIDS was only something you could catch if you were gay. Unbelievable. I had no idea she was that ill educated as to believe such a thing. She then went on to admit that she "Didn't really know much about AIDS" bit that she assumed it was only a gay thing because "that one from Queen died of AIDS didn't he?" Jesus Christ, it's no wonder I'm such a looser if 50% of my genetic make up comes from her. On the plus side, she did at least defend "gays" to her church group after some small point about gay couples adopting came up, but even still...

But what wonders will tomorrow hold? Will the guy from the first agency keep to his word and actually call me before the end of the week? Will he actually have good news? Will anyone have good news. Whilst I suspect that the answer to all of the above questions is no I did at least want to have a stab at creating an element of suspense (ruined purely by this last sentence).

Anyway, I'd better get some sleep before I get woken up by an early phone from someone at an agency who wants to tell me how useless I am.

The Second Post of 2007

2007-01-31T23:59:00.000Z

I haven't written for ages. I'm really trying to find a job, but I have a horrid feeling it isn't going to work out. I've sent my CV to an agency in the (probably vein) hop that they'll find me something. I'm not really holding out a lot of hope though. The guy I spoke to didn't seem all that interested (though he had been away for a couple of days and had lots to catch up with, so maybe he was just a bit hassled). Just this evening I emailed my CV off to whole bunch of other agencies. Maybe I'll give them a call on Friday. Maybe Monday. That is, if they don't call me first.

Anyway, if this all goes to shit, at least I have a slightly unappealing fallback. A friend of mine gave me the contact details for a guy at his agency. I didn't get to talk to the guy, but I did end up getting teh email of someone else at the agency to whom I could send my CV. Literally 20-30 minutes later I got a phone call back. The woman on the end of the line was helpful, but ultimately she felt that I'd be better off looking elsewhere if I wanted to find a more interesting job that "wouldn't bore me" I could take solace from the fact that she felt that I should be able to get something better than she could offer, shouldn't I. She ended up giving me the email of a guy at their parent company whom she felt was more likely to get me something good. This is the first guy that got my CV, the one I'm currently hoping will call me back. She did at least say that she could probably find me something if I got desperate. So that would be my fallbaclk option.

She emphasised the fact that I wouldn't find anything they had to offer particularly challenging or fulfilling. She did at least give me some hope for something better by saying that I should be able to find something with the qualifications I have. They haven't been of much use in the past, but we'll see.

But basically I've been worrying about never finding anything that I enjoy or at least that pays well enough to get out of this crappy town. Being here, in my hose in this awful suburb is just driving me crazy. I'm starting to think that I'm never going to escape.

There's other stuff on my mind at teh moment, my main worry is the job thing. Worst thing is, I'm starting to think that I have no real ability to do anything. That I have absolutely no marketable skills whatsoever. I feel really drained at the moment. Just tired of once more being in this situation. No, not once more. To say once more would suggest that I'd previously been able to extricate myself from all of this. But really I haven't. I've had jobs, but they've all been crap. Most importantly though, they haven't paid well enough to allow me to make any kind of significant changes to my life. So, I'm still, 5 years after leaving university, stuck in this situation. You can see why I'm tired of it can't you.

I just need a job. A job that pays well. A job that I can be proud of and enjoy. And I need it pretty soon. Before the last few weeks I really wasn't that bothered. But now I am. It's probably just because my money is running out. Or maybe it's because I'm starting to go crazy, shut up in this house. Actually what's driving me crazy right now is the complete lack of control I have over my situation. It's all in the hands of a bunch of peopel who work at recruitment agencies. I have having to rely in other people. I hate it when other people have such an influenced in what happens in my life. I really need to get back some control over things. And soon.

Well that's January over. Lets hope February is a hell of a lot better. I need 2007 to actually work out for me in a way that the other years simply haven't.

Tabula Rasa

2007-01-01T20:38:00.000Z

New Year is of course a purely arbitrary date from which we decide to start the year. All it really means is that the Earth is, at 12am on the 1st of January in exactly the same place it was 365 days before. In actual fact it doesn’t even mean that. The earth has not in fact completed a full rotation around the sun on the stroke of midnight. Give it another 6 hours and it will get there. After all a year is in fact 365 1/4 days long, we just round it down and add an extra day to the end of every 4th February to compensate. It’s not even really anything to do with the changing of the seasons. If one were to see spring as the beginning, or birth of a year and winter as the end, or death, of a year then the seasons are slightly out of sync. When the New Year begins we’re still stuck with the dismal (though increasingly less cold) English winter, not the more inviting warmth of spring.

So, new year; it's entirely arbitrary and completely wrong. None the less, it is significant in a somewhat notional and symbolic way and it's for that reason why so many see it as a chance for a new start. I felt that my last year was tainted by so much unpleasantness that it would a purely arbitrary change in year to allow me to distance myself from it and afford me the opportunity of a brand new start.

Which may make you think that I about to reel off a list of resolutions. I won't of course. Resolutions are completely pointless. So, I’m going to stop letting the past hold me back and allow the coming of the New Year to provide me with a clean slate where I cease to let the events of the past to have a negative impact on my present and future. Which is of course completely different to having a resolution.

So, this year I resolve to get a new job and loose some weight. And contradict myself less.

Last time I did promise that I’d fill you all in about my recent escapades. Obviously I didn’t manage to get round to it owing to my very hectic and somewhat expensive social life. It’s not like I’ve been doing anything particularly exciting. It’s certainly been fun, but not extraordinary. However, since a number of my friends now read my blog, I’ve realised that I have somewhat less to talk about. I excitedly tell someone about some interesting new development in my life, expecting them to be staggered and highly impressed. However, the most common response I get is not one of amazement and bewilderment, but of blasé disinterest coupled with the statement “I know, I read it on your blog.” I shouldn’t complain really, at least in means that people are not only reading my blog, but they’re also paying attention, all of which must be a positive. And it is, but it’s so like me to focus on the negative aspects of any given situation. Maybe I should resolve to be more positive. I just tend to forget what I’ve written and then repeat it in conversation. As result I feel that I’m being deeply unoriginal. I’m do hate being unoriginal; in fact I often go to strange lengths to avoid it. If somebody mishears me I tend to rephrase what I’ve just said. If only I had money. Then people could say that I was eccentric instead of just weird.

The last 9 days have been full of excess where I’ve consumed far too much alcohol, eaten far too much junk food and spent far too much money. So, it was a hell of a lot of fun. It was nice to actually have some things to do. In fact today is the first time that I feel like I’ve, at least partially, failed to achieve anything significant. True, my achievements of some days have merely amounted to getting very drunk, but even that’s good deal more than I’ve managed in the last few months. Anyway, it’s all been a lot of fun, which culminated last night with the slightly more expensive than I’d hoped New Years Eve celebrations. Admittedly I stayed out until 4am and, at £50 for almost 10 hours of drinking as well as dinner, it wasn’t actually all that expensive, but I do so enjoy complaining. And on that note, I should say that I was slightly disappointed that I couldn’t persuade more people to come along. Of everyone I asked, only a couple of people came along, so at least, initially, there were 4 people in total.

I wanted to keep the night pretty low key. We met at the Royal George, headed of to a posh burger place for dinner, popped briefly to a coupe of pubs, “The Pillars of Hercules” and “The Cambridge” (I think) then headed back to the Royal George for the rest of the evening. One of my friends was, I think a little disappointed that we didn’t go anywhere else. In fact when I spoke to another friend today he mentioned that the friend that turned up was actually looking to do something a little bigger, possibly clubbing, but to be honest I never really wanted to do anything like that. He complained a little (but to his credit, not too much) but it did shock me when he announced, sometime after 12.30, that he was leaving. His sister was having a party at the Docklands flat they share and I expect that he was heading back there, possibly to make a last ditch attempt to salvage the evening and pull. Really, I have no idea what goes on in Luke’s head. Which is precisely why I have no idea why he abandoned his work collegue. Poor girl, left with only myself and another friend, whom she’d met only once prior to New Years Eve, to keep her company. Fortunately it wasn’t a complete disaster; she's is an amusing, friendly and pretty open girl so there were no awkward conversation gaps. We actually talked about a wide variety of topics, sex with an unenthusiastic and somewhat static partner being one of them (ah, my favourite sex related complaint, and if you know me you’ll probably be aware of who it relates to), lesbianism (apparently she wouldn’t want to dismiss the possibility of, at some point, sleeping with a woman) being another. Actually there was a fair bit of sex related talk none of which could go anywhere of course. She is after all married (she says, though she never wears a ring) and I would never knowingly sleep with a girl who was in any way attached. I say “knowingly” because I did manage to break my steadfast rule first time out, but since I had no idea, I can hardly be blamed. Anyway, I can’t say that I wouldn’t have wanted to; it’s been far too long since my last shag for me not to want to. Oh well, it’s nothing that can’t easily dispelled by a quick wank or five.

I’d actually spent an awful lot of time talking to her before my friend left so (and I don’t mean what I’m about to say on a nasty way) his absence was hardly felt at all. I did slightly wonder whether Luke’s premature evacuation was inspired by a small bout of jealousy. Could he be interested in her? I certainly thought so the first time he brought her along to the Maple Leaf a few weeks ago, but he had told another friend otherwise. Of course he’s also said that he’d have no problem shagging a married woman (and according to him he already has) so that does leave the possibility quite open. Then again we could always discuss the gay option. Quite frankly, I do think that there still exists a possibility that he’s gay. Admittedly all the evidence is more than a little circumstantial and requires a fair bit of creative interpretation, but then the evidence to the contrary is a little difficult to corroborate. It seems odd that he claimed to sleep with girls with whom non of us could verify his story. After all, none of us are ever likely to meet them (at least not again. The first girl he slept with was an absolute cow. He said that he’d done the deed some while after we saw her for the first and last time.)

But back to New Years Eve. The only problem of the evening came when my friend's colleague had her purse and phone stolen. Nobody has any idea how it happened. There were sod all people about when it went missing, the pub didn’t get busy until after 1am, and nobody saw anybody anywhere near the table. I can only guess that she had it stolen when she went to the toilet. Shame, but she was really pragmatic about it. “The year can only get better from here” she said. I’d have taken it as a terrible omen for 2007 and basically written off the whole year.

My other friend, who was clearly pissed, wanted to stay on, but at 3.45am I decided that it was time to go and walked the lady back to Bond Street Station. And that, a brief phone call to my previously departed friend aside (no idea what we discussed though), was my new year.

I really hope that it's better than last year. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that it, but unfortunately I'm not all powerful. Certain things are beyond my control. Let's hope that they don't get in the way too much.

Miss me?

2006-12-28T02:21:00.000Z

Wow, I've been gone for two whole(ish) weeks. Bet you thought I'd given up didn't you. Never.

Actually in a way I sort of did. I have some random, and often quite severe, mood changes. I was talking about that a little in my last blog entry. Well, things got a little worse before they got better. I'm not gong to go into detail here, but when I get in to these kind of moods I just can’t do anything. Then, when it all goes away, I find it hard to work out why I was so screwed up in the first place. I have absolutely no control over the moods either, and it's not like anything tangible sets them off. It seems to be totally random, like I have a dimmer switch in my brain that turns up the depression.

But I'm OK now. Well, not OK, but at lest I’m not on the dark side of the mood swing-o-meter.

Like I said, nothing in particular really sets me off, but there are certain signs that I’m headed in the wrong direction. I start doing things like checking out friends reunited to see how lacking in success I am compared to old and long since abandoned university acquaintances are, all so as I can remind myself of how comparatively crap I am. Then I’ll spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about ex-girlfriends, thin king about how they were probably right to dump me all along (I do this even when I dumped them, reality is meaningless when I’m in one of these moods, the only think that matters is making me feel worse). Then I start to hope that things will go wrong just so that I can feel that short moment of elation as my assertion that my life is crap is once more proven right, all because I managed to drop a glass or something equally inconsequential. That’s terribly masochistic isn’t it?

Sometimes, I do start feeling better if I’m doing something I enjoy. Watching an old favourite TV show often helps. This time I whacked my DVD boxset of “Firefly” into the DVD player (though not all at once, I expect it would break) which seems, thus far, to be working. I expect it will only stop working when I finish episode 14, commiserate the fact that there will be no more episodes since the idiots at Fox cancelled the show and subsequently fall into a catatonic depression (if such a thing exists). Either that or I’ll find something else to watch, or maybe even a job. Oh yes, finding a job. Having finished the application for the PC magazine I asked my little sister (the teacher) to have a look at it. Almost two weeks later I’ve finally got it back (I hope she's faster at marking the little kiddies work) with a very teacherly note on it saying “Very Good”. Still, at least no misspelled words are underlined with red ink, which possibly means that there aren’t any. Of course it could simply indicate that she never bothered to read it and therefore didn’t manage to pick up on my poor spelling/grammar. Either way, it’s probably best if I check it over myself before I send it off.

Those of you who know me will know that things have been pretty bad for me this year. All the crap that went on at my last job has left me, in my dark moments, lacking confidence and generally feeling a little less than adequate. When I’m ok, there’s just a general undertone, a background noise of inadequacy. Sort of like people whispering just a fraction too quietly to be heard. When someone flicks the switch it’s like they’re sitting right next to me shouting in my ear, impossible to ignore. Now that I think about it my mum almost literally does that to me a great deal. I say almost, because she tends to sit (or stand) away from me when she’s deriding me. I often wonder what I’d be like with a little encouragement, what I’d be able to achieve. I guess I could answer that by looking at where I got to before my dad (who a great deal more helpful) died. With things as they are it’s a wonder that I manage to get out of bed at all.

Actually it’s been pretty crap most years since I left university, which is why I’m really hoping 2007 is better. I’d kind of hoped to start it, as tradition dictates, by going to some kind of New Years Eve event. I haven’t managed to find somewhere to go as yet, but that may not actually matter. With the number of my friends willing to participate dwindling on a daily basis, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that there’ll be enough left to make anything worthwhile. A bad omen for the year ahead perhaps.

Maybe it doesn’t matter anyway. I haven’t been sleeping well of late, waking up frequently during the night not being able to get to sleep in the first place. Added to that, I feel like crap because I seem to have put on a ton (not quite literally though) of weight. So I look like crap too, meaning any chances of pulling have gone south. Not that pulling would be the only reason to go, but it would certainly be nice. After all, it’s been a while. Well, regardless there probably wasn’t much chance anyway.

Enough maudlin shit, as I said, I’m feeling better now, but still not great. Just mediocre (a word that sums me up to a certain extent, but at least I can joke about that without bursting into tears).

So, what’s happened to me in the last couple of weeks?

I’ll go chronologically backwards. But not today. For now I’ve a little more Firefly to watch before bedtime. And I really have to start going to sleep earlier especially if I’m going to make it to the Coal Hole for 12pm on Friday to meet up with friends.

Also on my mind right now.

2006-12-14T05:23:00.000Z

I was gong to say something about the other subject that was on my mind right now, However, after the longest post ever I've decided to hold it over for another day. I'd been thinking about someone a lot over the last few days and I just wanted to talk about the whole situation here, but given that it's 5.30am I think that that I should probably go to bed. I expect that it will probably be another long post and I'm pretty tired so...

Tomorrow I should also finish off that job application and maybe get some exercise. Exercise is something else I've been neglecting over the past few weeks. Admittedly I'd left the weights alone because I'd strained my shoulder (though I think I did it due to the awkward position I adopt whilst I use my desktop PC. I sit on the chair the wrong way round lean my left side across the back, with my left hand hovering over the keyboard and my right arm stretched way too much across to the mouse on the right hand side of the desk.) Regardless, I shouldn't have let that stop me from doing everything else. It's easy for me to stop though. Years ago a friend told me that she was quite literally addicted to going to the gym. She'd wake up and want to exercise. I don't seem to have that problem

Anyway, I'm feeling (and looking) a little flabby at the moment. I have been trying (I should emphasise trying because I haven't always been successful) to eat a little better and a little less too, so I'm hoping that will help.

I wonder if lack of exercise has also been a factor in my recent spell of depression?

Not Great

2006-12-14T03:35:00.000Z

I've not been feeling too great recently, which is why I haven't posted for a while. Aside from trips to Sainsbury (one of which really fucked me off, but I maybe speak of that later) and a trip to John Lewis in Watford, I haven't actually left the house for about 10 days, pretty much the same amount of time since my last blog entry. I've just been feeling a little depressed of late. I've been feeling as if I'm never going to get out of here, I'm never going to find a job that won't make me dread getting up in the morning and subsequently I'm never going to be able to afford to buy my own place (especially with the way house prices are rising). I heard couple of days ago that I didn't get the job at the ASA, they didn't even want to interview me. I really don't understand why I can't get interviews. My CV is pretty good, I would say, but perhaps I need to exaggerate my achievements and tell a few lies. I hear that employers now expect your CV to be somewhat fictitious and downgrade their expectations accordingly. If they're doing that to my entirely truthful CV then... well they're not exactly getting an accurate picture of what I can do. I'm applying for another job this week though. I'd be working at a PC magazine as a staff writer. I expect that my chances of getting it are fairly slim, after all, I have no journalistic experience and there's bound to be somebody who's better qualified. Still, I suppose I'd better try. The application requires me to send in a review of my PC in the style of the magazine. I'm having some trouble keeping within the 500 word limit that they set; after all, every single one of the reviews I read on their website ran to about 750 words. So far I've got it down to about 600 words, but it’s now got to the point that I am no longer able to write things more succinctly without them loosing their meaning. Bah, I'm sure I'll finish within the limit somehow. I doubt that it will do me any good though. We'll see.

Actually, I'm starting to feel a little better as I write, which leaves me wondering. Have I been neglecting my writing because I haven't been feeling great? Or have I not been feeling great because I've been neglecting my writing? Hmm, one to ponder I think.

Well, the John Lewis trip brought about some good news; we’ve finally got a new television. The old 29” Sony CRT TV broke about 4 or 5 months ago. After a couple of attempts to get it repaired the TV was junked. The first place we took it to claimed to have got it sorted, but it broke down within a few hours of getting it home. A refund was duly given, but he still insisted on taking £20 to have a look at it, a charge that I don’t think should be applicable if he couldn’t mend it. As ever, my Mum acquiesced and the man got his money. I’d have argued. A lot. The next place reckoned that it would cost too much to fix. At that point we abandoned it. It’s a shame, the picture quality was great. All that was wrong with it was that it kept switching itself off every so often (though sometimes it would take a number of tries to get it to go back on). We’d had it for about 11 or 12 years, my dad had bought it after he got made redundant/retired, so that kind of made it even more of a shame. Anyway, since we finally gave up on it we’ve been using a tiny 20” Samsung CRT TV. Needless to say I haven’t been bothering to watch TV in the living room much. Instead I’ve made use of the 25” Sony TV in my bedroom (at least 15 years old and still going strong. It used to belong to my Grandma but she died about 8 years ago and I’ve had it ever since. I’ve had to spend about £100 on repairs since I’ve had it, strangely enough it was switching itself off too, but it’s been fine for the last couple of years and shows no sign of breaking, With my situation being what it is I’d rather it stayed working for a fair while longer too). The new TV is a bang(ish) up to date HDTV ready 32” LCD widescreen Toshiba. Compared to the old 20” it’s massive. However, because it has to display pictures from the sky box of a lower resolution than its native 1366x768 the picture actually looks a little worse than the old Sony. Still, I guess it’ll all be worth it when it’s coupled to an Xbox 360, HD-DVD player (I expect that Blu-ray will prove to be the Betamax of the High def DVD wars and fall by the wayside), and something capable of receiving some actual HD broadcasts, either through Sky HD or HD Freeview (if they ever start that properly and manage to improve freeview reception to my house; we appear to be in a small digital terrestrial blackspot. That said, analogue reception is crap too so the aerial could be partially to blame, as could the height of the flats across the road.) then I’m sure that it’s going to look way better. It was £800, more than Amazon charge, but John Lewis give you a 5 year warranty, so I suppose it’s not too bad a deal.

As I said before, other than that I’ve only been to Sainsbury’s which has been getting increasingly busy the closer we get to Christmas. On one of my visits (one where I was getting absolutely nothing for myself) I had yet more proof that there are an awful lot of wankers out there. Parking was limited and I’d had to drive around for about 10 minutes to find one. Eventually I noticed that a car was about to leave, so I duly stopped my car and began to indicate. They what seemed like a couple of minutes to drive off. I suspect that they wanted to go the wrong way along the car parks one way system, but since my car was blocking their path they couldn’t. They oddly chose to take the longest other route out which meant that I had to wait a second whilst they got out of the way. In the meantime, some bastard in a clapped out maroon H reg Ford Sierra (lot of detail there) pulled out of the queue of traffic that was snaking around the car park down the wrong way of the isle where the space was, and crookedly (in both senses of the word) parked his car in MY space. Bastard. I immediately honked my horn at him. He acted as though he were oblivious, shut off his engine and opened his car door. As he got out of his car I wound the window down the window. “Hey” I said “that’s my space, I’ve been waiting there for ages. Didn’t you see me indicate?” “Oh, were you. Sorry about that.” “That’s fine I said, expecting him to evacuate the ill gotten space. But the arrogant bastard didn’t head back inside his car “So, aren’t you going to move.” I asked, stern but polite. “No” he replied. “But that’s my space. I’ve been waiting for ages to get in there. I was here first” I protested. “He arrogantly responded “But I got in there first so it’s mine.” What an arsehole. By this point he was right outside my window. He looked like he was in his late fifties to early sixties; maybe he was younger but just very badly preserved. He looked scruffy with wisps of unkempt grey hair sitting atop his head with its pock marked face. He wore a grey anorak. He looked like a paedophile, or at the very least a dirty old man.

“Didn’t you see me indicating?” I asked. “No, I didn’t sorry” Two lies in one sentence; he clearly saw me indicating and he quite obviously wasn’t sorry.” Look, that’s my space are you going to, move.” “No. I’m not.” “I can’t believe that you just did that. Not only did you steal a space that I was obviously waiting for, you drove the wrong way up a wrong way road to get to it.” After all, had I move just a hair quicker he’d have simply smashed into my car. I only didn’t move more quickly because I could see that he was quite willing to collide with my car just to get the space.

“I don’t see what the problem is, I’m only going to be a couple of minutes.” he said selfishly, without a hint of regret or compassion. “It’s my space. Move your car.” “No”. “Wanker.” I shouted loudly before honking my horn again. He just walked away, no doubt going off to abuse some children or perve on teenaged girls.

A few minutes later, after rejoining the long queue of traffic I managed to find a space. As I walked towards the shop I noticed the bastard’s car. I gave serious thought to keying his car. I’m not sure why I didn’t. He certainly deserved it, bit something stopped me. I even went to give his tyres a kick but stopped just short of their badly worn rubber. I went inside and hurriedly did my shopping. It occurred to me that he might do something to my infinitely more expensive car (okay, it’s not worth a huge amount, but it’s probably worth x100 more than his piece of shit. I thought once again about keying his car as I went past it. I couldn’t though, it was gone. I checked on my own car. Fortunately there wasn’t any damage. It occurred to me that had I scratched his paintwork before I’d gone in he’d have been more likely to go after my car. It was probably a good ting that I did it. Besides, I realised, I’m not that vindictive. Well, I am pretty vindictive (I once publically chucked a drink at someone because he went back on a legitimate bet. He had to be physically restrained as I turned my back on him and walked of to the bar, complaining that I now had to buy a new drink), but I guess even I stop at illegal acts of vandalism. As I said, he might have decided to take revenge in my car so it was probably for the best. Then again, his car was such a wreck, that he probably wouldn’t have even noticed.

The problem is I still think that people who do tings that make the lives of others that little but worse simply shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this sort of thing. There should be some kind of karmic punishment. Maybe there will be at some point, unbeknownst to me, but my need for instant gratification makes me feel that I should be the instrument of karma. I’d usually feel guilty about doing bad things, but he would have deserved it. Besides, if I were only acting as the instrument of Karma I would actually be doing a good thing by, in a way, helping to bring balance back to the universe.

Actually, I really do hate that kind of thing. It’s those small acts of unkindness, of impoliteness and of selfishness that helps incrementally to make the world a far worse place. Just think about it. How much less inclined are you to do a nice thing when somebody’s just done something nasty to you. I mean it could be a small something, like letting a door shut in your face, or cutting you up, dropping litter, whatever. But it all goes towards making you feel a little less kind. And ten maybe you won’t bother to say thank you when somebody lets you out of a side road, they get pissed off and don’t bother to help an old person who’s trying to carry a heavy bag down a steep flight of steps. It’s a long chain that continues until everybody gradually becomes and unhelpful bitter old man who steal parking spaces and abuses kids.

Maybe I’m overstating it; maybe things don’t actually work like that. At least not for everybody else. Yeah, maybe it’s just me who feels that way. I doubt it though.

So for my part I’m going to try to break the chain as often as I can. If somebody’s crap to me I’m going to be especially nice to someone else the next time I have the opportunity. Actually right after my parking space was stolen almost straight away I had the chance to pilfer a space over which someone else had priority. But I didn’t. I guess I’m not anywhere near becoming that sad, bitter, old man in a clapped out old Sierra (who probably needed the space in a hurry because it was time for the local schoolchildren to leave). Not yet anyway. And I hope not ever.

And if you have the chance, maybe you could do likewise. Maybe, if we all did that the world would be just that little more bearable.

Dear Daily Mail - An uncontrolled rant

2006-12-06T22:40:00.000Z

I was reading through a forum just now and I noticed a post from someone about how they thought footballers are overpaid. Fair enough, I thought, they are overpaid. Below someone had replied in agreement. However, they’d also made the point that there are other jobs far more worthy of high salaries and they included plumbers and builders as examples. Below is the full, unedited, text of my response.

"If you've ever needed to get a leaking tap fixed you'll realise that plumbers already get paid way too much. It wouldn't be so bad if they were even vaguely reliable, but I get the feeling that people from the aforementioned groups tend to hold their "skills" ransom, turn up whenever they feel like it and charge you an arm and a leg whenever they deign you worthy of their presence.

When I was at university I rented a house from a guy who made his living as a plumber. Having seen the size of his personal house I can assure you that he was in no need of further remuneration. And would he ever put his hand in his pocket to fix any problems with the house he was renting us?

For the money I'd become a plumber if only I were the sort of person who could live with myself after charging some poor old lady £100 from her meagre state pension for changing a washer.

Try teachers, nurses, firemen and policemen (and women) if you want groups of people who should be paid more.

Oh, and add, London Transport workers to the groups of people who should be paid less. Barely a brain cell between the lot of them and they still get paid more money and do less work than, say, a firefighter. Well, I mean they do less work when they have to go in, which isn't that often when you consider how much holiday time they have in relation to people in other, less well paid lines of work. It makes me sick that they strike so much, especially last year when they struck in a failed attempt to put the kibosh on many Londoners New Years Eve plans. I thought the idea of a strike was to financially inconvenience employers. Given that traditionally the tube is free on NYE all they were going to do was antagonise the general public, many of whom simply wanted to celebrate the coming of the New Year.

Most of the ones I've encountered (though not all of them) are ill mannered, rude and downright unhelpful. They barely ear a tenth of their salary if you ask me.

Yes, footballers do get paid far too much, but at least I don't have to put my hand in my own pocket every time one of them scores a goal. If the people who run the football clubs think that they're worth it then good luck to them. It's all to do with market forces I guess. People are prepared to pay for their exorbitantly priced season tickets that pay these overpaid idiots. Sponsors are prepared to shell out vast quantities of cash so the these "celebrities" endorse their products, which, they hope, will persuade Joe public to spend his hard earned cash on whatever rubbish they're selling. And it works, because people can be so easily led.

It's just a shame that the vast majority of footballers tend to piss away their earnings on some of the most lavish tat known to man. At least that's what they do when their not starting fights in nightclubs after an evening drinking overpriced champagne, living the so-called high life. If their not doing that they're sleeping with women who sell their stories to the tabloids for vast amounts of cash. And why do the tabloids pay so much for these kind of stories? Because there are people out their willing to buy this rubbish, and the thought of that makes me incredibly sad.

That's the problem with "celebrity" culture. People hear about all these "stars" getting away with murder (in the case of OJ Simpson, quite literally) and they think it's OK to behave like anti-social morons. It's effectively celebrity endorsement of hooliganism, every bit as effective as any advertising. Quite how Pete Doherty has managed to escape prison, having been tried for Drug possession is beyond me. So kids, apparently its OK to be a junkie because at worst you'll get a (proportionally) small fine (I think he was finned £770, probably substantially less than it cost to arrest him and take him to court) and told not to do it again. At least until the next time when the whole process is repeated again ad infinitum.

Sorry, rant over. Perhaps next time I feel like this I'll just write a letter to the Daily Mail or something."

And I could easily have gone on too. Every 5 minutes for about 20 minutes after I initially posted I kept coming up with more things to add. So, I edited my post and above is the final result. I'm still coming up with more things to add, but I thought that I'd better leave it there. It was after all just a forum about video games. I have a little more to say about video games too, but I'll leave that for another post.

At the end of my forum entry I was going to add the sentence "And you can say what you like about organised religion, after all I'm neither a proponent of it nor am I a believer, but at least in Jesus Christ it provided a reasonably suitable role model for today’s youth. Certainly more suitable than Jade bloody Goodie, who whatever new reprobate has been evicted from Big Brother this week. No wonder the county is going to hell"

I was going to add that (and, now that I think about it, so much more), but I thought that it may have been a step to far.

I think that the very fact that I went on so much suggests that I'm not all that happy (or that I may possibly be able to get a job on "Grumpy Old Men. Or maybe both).

First Cars

2006-12-05T02:36:00.000Z

I can't believe it. Lee's actually bought a car (I've decided to come over all Ceasar-ish and write my journals in the third person. I'm not talking about myself, I can assure you). If you're reading this Lee, happy motoring.

Back in March I bought myself a new car, only my second since I passed my test back in August of 1995. For eight and a half years I drove an M-reg 1995 Vauxhall Corsa, originally in "Flame" red but latterly in partial pink. Never buy a red, non-metallic car, it will inevitably turn pink, or possibly orange. But, in spite of its cosmetic faults I truly loved that car. Aside from a dodgy window (that was eventually fixed by the incompetents at my local Vauxhall dealer after about four attempts at fixing the wrong part), it never went wrong in any major way. I had a couple of accidents in it, neither of which were my fault, at least as far as the insurance companies were concerned. I might have been responsible for the multi-car pile up that ensued after I mistook a right turning stop light for a straight on one whilst on my way to Kingston. The cars behind me were too close and piled into each other in my wake. I escaped after a small bump in the rear from the car behind which left me entirely unscathed. The other accident where some idiot in a tiny Bedford van pulled out from a side road on me was entirely his fault. I managed to stop just about in time, only lightly bumping the imbecile, only to have the fool move the van across my front scraping my bumper. The cheeky bastard had the gall to say that it didn’t matter if my car was a bit damaged since my paint was so faded. Bastard. I’m glad I eventually got the money put of him, but not before some considerable trouble with my insurance company. The bastards took months sort it out. They even tried to charge me more for my renewal because the claim hadn’t been settled. I actually had to say that I wasn’t going to pursue the claim to get a cheap renewal (in the end I found a new insurance company. Actually, the same insurance company through a different broker that somehow worked out drastically cheaper.), but fortunately, a week later, I got a letter from the idiot van drivers insurance company saying that they were going to pay for my repairs. Very serendipitous.

But there are good memories that go along with my little Corsa. It was the car that saw me through 4 of my 5 university years (I only got it just before my second year when I was living quite a way off campus). People I loved travelled with me in that car, friends that I cherished. One friend even tried to name it Colin (alliteration again). It didn’t stick.

It was reliable, I don’t remember it ever letting me down, but in the last few months I started to worry that it would. I worried enough to buy a new car, a 2002 Vauxhall Astra 1.6 litre SXi in Blue (my favourite colour) from a dealer in Reading (equally useless, they gave me a flat battery. Fortunately I made the journey back without stalling. The dead battery would have prevented me from getting it going again.) On the way there I hit terrible traffic. A journey that should have taken little more than an hour took nearly three times that. My little Corsa held just about made the final journey, though the wheezing coming from the front suggested that it was more than a little sick.

Just as I drove away from the dealer in my new car I looked back at the little red Corsa that had been my companion for so long, The little, red Corsa that I had shard so much with. I bid it a fond farewell. It was time to move on, I knew that. The trip to Reading had proved as much. But I still felt like I was leaving an important part of my past behind in a dealers forecourt in Reading.

So Lee, enjoy your first car. You’ll never have another like it.

MInd the Gaps

2006-12-03T23:43:00.000Z

Note to self. Remember to eat before going out drinking.

After about 10pm I only remember bits of last night. Small patches do keep coming back to me. We went to the Maple Leaf in Covent Garden. I still remember that. Jamie was waiting for me at the station when I arrived. I was 5 minutes late, but that's too bad considering how late I left. I figured we'd start off at the Maple Leaf then head over to that Irish pub near Piccadilly Circus (O'Something or another'; yeah, I guess that's a pretty safe bet). As it turned out we stayed there for the whole evening (actually I think that Luke and his friends, possibly Jamie too, ended up at The Walkabout on Embankment). That's the problem with the Maple Leaf; it's such a great place to be and practically impossible to leave if get lucky and find a table. Admittedly I'm not too fond of the log cabin style refurb. And they got rid of the "Molson" chair. A portrait of John Molson (the man behind my hangover) hung over an inactive fireplace. In front of that was a table and a high backed, leather arm chair, the "Molson Chair". It was sort of chair that you'd expect to see being used by a man sporting a large handlebar moustache, smoking a pipe as he enjoys a good single malt whisky at his preferred gentleman's club. In the old days, when the Maple Leaf was just a little less busy we always made a beeline for the Molson chair. It's still there, but it’s no longer at the back of the bar by the fireplace underneath the portrait of John Molson. They've moved the portrait too. Nobody bothers to go for the chair anymore. Still, at least Bernie the stuffed (and slightly anorexic) bear is still about. Hmm, all of that sounded like it was building up to be metaphor for something. Well, except for the bit about Bernie (and it’s not like we’ve ever called him that; I’ve only just arbitrarily decided on an alliterative name for him).

Anyway, surprise of the night came when Luke turned up, complete with a girl from his office. She looked a little unassuming at first, wrapped up in a ¾ length, blue/green coat, but when she took it off she revealed a slender East Asian form, cloaked, very lightly, by a tight blue bustier-esqe top that cupped her small, but shapely breasts. If only I could remember the conversation as well as the breasts. I did talk to her for a wile. I’m told I was quite funny, if a little over the top with my good natured banter about Luke’s many deficiencies. Still, even if I was funny and charming it was all for naught; I found out later that the girl, Joyce, yes that was her name, was married, even though she wore no ring. I wasn’t interested of course. At the risk of being crass Luke had dibs anyway. No, I had no real interest in Joyce besides using her as a means by which I could keep myself amused, to prove that I could still hold the attention of a pretty girl if I so wished. It helped that I was in something of an exuberant mood at the evenings beginning. Even before the alcohol that followed. In another state of mind I would have undoubtedly found it less easy.

Now that I think about it, perhaps, conversely, my lack of any real interest in the subject (so clinical) rendered the exercise entirely pointless anyway. Still, it made me feel better for a short while.

Shots were ordered and I made Jamie seem foolish in front of the barmaid he fancied (at least that’s what the tell me). Jamie bears me no ill will; apparently he has no memory if it either.

Some other people turned up; I assumed they more of Luke’s work collegues, apparently only one of the three was.

I’ll reiterate my earlier point. It is essential that I eat BEFORE I go out.

I left at some point, of that I’m sure. It was an indeterminate amount of time after Ben and Craig left, but maybe not before Jamie. Certainly it was before Luke and his rapidly expanding entourage left (they went on to join Rosh at his gathering for the 19 year old girl, whoever she was, at the Walkabout). I vaguely remember finding myself walking across Trafalgar square, not my usual route to Piccadilly Circus (where I’d usually get the Bakerloo line, but not that day); the result, I think of an abortive attempt to go to the Strand branch of McDonalds for a burger. Quite what was wrong with the Leicester Square branch that I would pass by had I taken my regular path, I don’t know. Quite why I didn’t go for the burger after all I don’t know either. Maybe it had something to do with how queasy I felt going back on the Piccadilly Line to Rayners Lane (obviously I couldn’t muster the strength to change trains so as I could go directly to my closest station). Luckily the toilets weren’t open. The local youth must have decided to ply their vandalistic trade elsewhere that weekend. I continued to be unwell when I got home. For the first night in weeks, I had no trouble sleeping.

I notice that I’m naming names today. If anybody who reds this has any objections I’ll remove them. I’m Lee by the way.

Why did I bother?

2006-12-01T03:12:00.001Z

I got a call from Craig at lunch time today. In truth it woke me up, but still, I'd been woken up a few times already by that point anyway. He wanted to play Halo 2 later. To sleepy to come up with a good reason why didn't want to (retrospectively I probably should have simply said "I don't want to") I said yes. So at about 9pm he called and, a while later (it was about 9.30pm, but it seemed like quite a while) we started playing. It was just as bloody awful as I remembered. Hordes of screaming, sub-literate American kids, gleefully attempting to mock you for your accent or kill you deliberately even though they're on your team. Then you have to put up with laggy game play where your efforts are seemingly further hampered by the unfair advantage that Xbox 360 owners seem to have with what appears to be a far more accurate and deadly auto aim, meaning that you die about twice as quickly as your richer (at least their parents are richer), younger, whinier, transatlantic cousins. That's if the Yank kids haven't already quit because they've gone 1-0 down after 30 seconds of the game. In the end the whole thing was starting to wind me up so much that I simply gave up bothering to play properly. In the past I even managed to get so pissed off with the uneven playing field that I threw my joypad on the floor. This would have been fine, the joypad's quite sturdy after all, unfortunately it's connected to the headset, which is nowhere near as well but and promptly snapped as it came off my head.

It wasn't fun. I probably won't renew my Xbox live subscription when it expires in February. I'm starting to think that Xbox live is a major contributing factor towards the rest of the worlds hatred towards America. I really do hope that the miscreants one encounters on Xbox live aren't in any way representative of the US population as a whole.

Craig has an Xbox 360. I'll probably never get one. He's been trying to persuade me to get one. He talks as if it's inevitability. It really isn't.

So, a complete waste of an evening. Sort of. I suppose at least now I know that I'm not missing out on anything good by leaving my Xbox turned off.

Oh, you know, stuff

2006-11-29T15:30:00.000Z

Well, I'm stuck in waiting for a guy to fix the grill on the oven so I figured that I might as well write something. They're due between 2 and 4pm. Its gone 3.30 now and they're still a no show.

I actually applied for a job last week, so I guess the hunt is on. That said I haven't applied for anything else so the application count stays at a staggering one in four months (since I left work. It's only been two since I stopped getting paid. They paid me for 6 weeks after my last day. Quite frankly that's the least they could have done under the circumstances. I really deserved more given how badly they treated me.) I don't think I ever fully explained what happened. I will at some point, just not today. I'm a little fed up with talking about it to be quite honest.

Over the last few months (well, years, but especially in the last few months) I've been playing a lot of video games. Actually, that's not strictly true; I've only been playing Halo (PC) and Halo 2 (Xbox). I don't know why I was spending so much time playing games because I was getting virtually nothing from it. I'd get frustrated when I lost and an overwhelming of, well, nothing when I won. Plus I seemed to be playing so much that I was neglecting other, more important things (like applying for jobs and writing; why do you think I've posted so here so infrequently up until a few weeks ago.). In other words playing video games was having a detrimental effect on my life. It simply wasn't giving me the sense of having actually achieved something that I get from, for example, writing or applying for a job (though I'm still not sure if the later is futile. After all, I applied for literally hundreds of jobs after I left university and had no luck whatsoever). It was just monopolising my time and giving me nothing back. In fact, it almost took a sizeable chunk out of my finances. I was really close to asking for an Xbox 360 for my birthday, but that would have meant contributing at least £200 towards the cost, which is an awful lot. In the end I decided that it wasn't worth it. After all I'd just end up playing the same games I'd always played. In other words, it was pointless, but only a little more pointless than continuing to play as often as I did. Which is why I've pretty much stopped. Days go by without playing. I did have a go on a little Halo yesterday, but it was a totally unfulfilling experience.

Time will tell if I start playing again. I practically stopped before when I started university, only to start again towards the end of my undergraduate degree. In all fairness at that point I only played when I could play with other people. Well, I suppose that's why online gaming is so dangerous; there's always someone else out there who wants a game. By the way, the link at the side of the page for DVASquad.com takes you to the homepage of the Halo clan of which I am a member. See, I was so involved I was even a member of a clan.

I've just made the whole thing sound like some terrible addiction. It isn't of course. It was just a way of avoiding getting on with things. Or maybe it was just a way of avoiding the reality of my, fairly miserable situation at home. On that subject I just got a phone call from my mum. The oven repair guy still hasn't come and she's trying to say that I probably missed him because I took a shower at 1.30pm, about a half hour before the earliest time he was due to arrive. Let's not forget that when I've needed her to stay in when I've expected a package, she hasn't bothered. She's always blaming me for things though. Last night she (and my sister) had a go at me when the internet refused to work on my sisters PC. It turned out that my mum had damaged the network cable when she moved my sister’s bedroom around. So, I said that she could use a cable I had, but she'd have to get me a new one. All hell broke loose and the upshot was that I had to supply the cable and expect no replacement or everybody would stop contributing to the broadband bill. A little unreasonable don't you think.

And talking of being unreasonable, the guy arrived to fix the grill whilst I was writing. He promptly told me that it needed a new burner, the part that the previous guy said it didn’t need, despite the fact that the guy who came before him had said the contrary, and promptly sent back. So, now let’s hope that they get it fixed on their fourth visit. Once again, I’m not holding my breath. See what I mean about people being incompetent?

Anyway, I did actually men to write something a little more interesting this time round, and I've just ended up ranting again. Maybe next time I post I'll actually talk about some of the things on my mind.

I'm still here

2006-11-29T05:31:00.000Z

I'm still around. I'll try to post something tomorrow (or today, it is 5.30am after all). After a week of going to bed at a reasonable hours I've defaulted back to post 5am bedtimes (meaning that I don't get to sleep until after 6am). I don't even need to since, for this week only, I have the house to myself from midday until 5pm. Of course that didn't stop the remnants of my family from making my life a misery for practically the entire 2 hours that they were both in. I like staying up late. I like being alone. I like the quiet. Goodnight.

Worth the Wait?

2006-11-19T20:26:00.001Z

Finally it came. But was it worth it? Well, it's a little bit chunkier than I'm used to. At this point it occurs to me that I should make it clear that I’m talking about my new phone. I’m definitely glad that I waited. It looks really nice in silver and, as well as the bond stuff pre-installed on the phone, it also came with the two disc editions of 3 Bond films, Goldfinger, The Man with the Golden Gun, and Goldeneye. I’ve actually got all of the original single disc versions of the Bond films (put them altogether and their spines spell out 007), but it’s always nice to get something extra for free. Technically I guess that their not free, I did pay £90 for the phone after all. Then again my line rental has been cut by £10 a month, so I’m still £30 up on the deal over the course of the whole year.

I’ve had it for three days and the battery has just worn out. Not too bad for a first charge. It should get better with time (I hope). Besides, I won’t be playing about with it so much in the future, so that should let me get a better standby time. The camera’s great though. It has pretty much every feature that you might find in a dedicated digital camera. The flash is excellent; it even has redeye reduction. In fact the only feature missing is an optical zoom. Maybe they’ll have that in next year’s model. Anyway, the camera has so many features that I haven’t really worked out how to use them all yet. Hopefully I’ll get to grips with it soon so that I can get a few pictures to post on my Blog. That is, of course, assuming that I can figure out how to do it.

So, from the silver K800i to the film in which it is so prominently features, the new James Bond adventure, Casino Royale. So many people have questioned the appointment of Daniel Craig as the new, blond, James Bond. I myself was a little unsure of him since he seems to deviate so much from the established image of Bond. However, one should remember how much our image of James bond has deviated from that portrayed in the original Ian Fleming books. For that reason his portrayal most closely resembles that of the “first” James Bond, Sean Connery. He cold, yet charming. People have criticised him for lacking the pretty boy looks of some of his predecessors, but to my mind his appearance is far more appropriate. His face is far more anonymous, far easier to forget, surely a desirable attribute for a secret agent. He’s also obviously spent a bit of time down the gym. Fortunate, since this is a far more physical Bond. From the brutality of Bond’s first kill to the climactic sequence at the movie’s close, this one film has more exciting action that the entire oeuvre of Roger Moore’s Bond. Of particular note is the chase sequence where, Bond pursues a free running bomb maker that follows the films opening sequence. In fact the stunts throughout are great, with no CGI intrusions whatsoever. Just as a Bond movie should be. I don’t want to say too much more about the film just in case I spoil it for you. All in all, the film managed to respect the history of the Bond films; references are liberally smattered across the celluloid, but it also successfully brings the franchise up to date, dispensing with the suspension of disbelief defying gadgets. There’s no invisible car to be seen. But then I suppose that you wouldn’t see it even if there were. If you see what I mean. Anyway, without a doubt this is the best Bond movie in years. In fact it may even be the best Bond movie ever.

I despair

2006-11-15T23:23:00.000Z

Believe it or not I told a friend of mine that it was easy to get an upgrade for his mobile phone. He said that he didn’t have time. I said that all you needed to do was make one phone call. It’d take five minutes tops. I think that this is the most wrong I have ever been.

Sorry to keep going on about this, but in this post I'm going to talk about my new phone. It didn't come. Instead I was sent yet another black one. I am somewhat more than mildly annoyed with o2. Apparently (I say apparently for, well, reasons that should be apparent), they are sending out the correct silver one tomorrow. I'm not exactly counting on it. I have absolutely no faith in their abilities to get anything right. I did get a sort of explanation why I got the wrong phone. According to the dim sounding guy at o2 "we didn't have any of the silver ones in stock then" before he added "but we do now."

We'll see.

Anyway if it does end up coming tomorrow I'll probably go shopping for new glasses on Friday. I've been wearing my current ones for way too long. They're so covered in scratches that I can almost see more clearly without them than with. There's also a small chip in the corner of the left lens from when a friend and I, drunk after returning to his house following a night out in Brighton, go involved in a play fight. Yes, immature I know, but surely alcohol provides a reasonable excuse. After a somewhat week and ineffectual punch to my face my friend caught his hand on my glasses. They went flying, the lens left the frame upon impact with the pavement. Luckily The chip is barely visible, unless you really look, which is why I’ve been able to get away with it for the last few years. I suspect my prescription's changed a little too as I tend to get a few more headaches than I used to. One night last week I had terrible eyestrain after an evening reading from my laptop. Anyway, it’s way overdue time for a change.

And on the subject of change, I think I may call up an employment agency next week, probably the one recommended by a friend. I really don’t have the stomach to go through sending off hundreds of applications, only to be turned down by pretty much all of them. I must have applied for hundreds of jobs straight after university. Rejection letters followed for some, most didn’t bother replying at all. A few actually called me in for interviews, but they never went anywhere. I only ended up getting my first job after a friend heard that there was a position going at his friends firm. And that didn’t exactly work out for me.

I haven’t really had much luck with work. All of my jobs have been pretty crap and they’ve eventually made me pretty miserable. Bearing that in mind you can understand why I’m so reluctant to embark upon yet another journey towards misery. Still, it’s got to be better than staying here. God, I really need to move out and leave Harrow behind for good. It’s not that it’s a particularly bad area its just so bland, so mediocre. People say “Oh Harrow’s not that bad. It’s got easy access into Central London.” You know that somewhere really sucks when the best thing that you can say about it is that it’s easy to leave.

Anyway, I have to go to bed soonish. I have to wake up early tomorrow so that I can stay in all day waiting for o2 to deliver the wrong phone.

Stupid is as stupid does

2006-11-14T15:19:00.000Z

Well, after over an hours worth of driving (the trip to Hayes was not fun, the traffic was pretty heavy). I got my new phone. At least I though I did. When I opened up the box I discovered that the geniuses at o2 had sent me a black K800i, not the silver Bond edition that I asked for. I did actually make it abundantly clear that I wanted the silver one, so quite how they managed to send me the black one is beyond me. I now have to wait until Wednesday when they have promised (after I had to make phone calls to 3 different people, giving each of them all my details) to send me a replacement phone and collect the incorrect one. We’ll see.

Am I being to pedantic? Should I have simply accepted the Black phone? Am I making too much out of this?

I just get frustrated when things go wrong as they quite frequently do when they are out of my control. A part of me knew that this would happen. Things like this always happen when I have to rely on other people. I really wish I didn't have to. Nobody seems to really care any more. I'm not sure I entirely blame the staff though they must shoulder a far amount of the blame. It seems that a great number of companies have a complete inability to get things done correctly. I know that was certainly the case where I last worked. I would say that I spent about half my time sorting out complaints from people who had been sent wrong/damaged items, all because warehouse staff couldn't be bothered/weren't to do their jobs properly. All that made it difficult to actually do my job properly. Things had to be rushed and inevitably the odd mistake was made which caused even more disruption. I tried to explain that the warehouse staffs incompetence was causing me problems, but my boss just said "I don't care." When the problems continued I was told that I would have to inspect some of the deliveries that the warehouse prepared, costing me yet more time. It's crazy. That place was appalling; they didn't care about their staff and couldn't manage things properly. I really hope that it closes down. Obviously I hope that everybody who's any good finds another job though, but mostly I hope that the people who run the company find themselves poverty stricken, unable to buy toilet brushes costing over £100 (I know for a fact that the owner of the company spent this much money on one. Why should people be allowed to spend silly money on ridiculous extravagances whilst others suffer. It explains why they only pay such paltry wages, wages that were insufficient to live on).

I really haven’t had good experiences with jobs, and it’s making me reluctant to find another. At least I’m not prepared to work in a job I hate for a company I despise with people I loathe. Not again.

And I certainly don't want to work for a company who devote time to chastising their employees for writing notes on their notepads (which nobody, not even within the company, would see) in the "wrong" colour ink. It's pathetic.

Some good news

2006-11-13T13:32:00.000Z

Well, after that extended rant about the inadequacies of couriers, I have at least discovered that some thing good has happened. Since I go broadband I’ve been saddled with a lowly 512K connection due, apparently, to my “poor quality line”. I got an email from my ISP telling me that there would be a short outage of my service today whilst they installed their LLU equipment in my local exchange. A little after 12am, my internet connection died. It came back on again 30 mins later and I continued with my www related business.

I just checked a download and discovered that it was going at a speed far in excess of my previous limit. So, I went into my router settings and low and behold I now have a 2mb connection. I’m sure that it’s probably temporary; maybe they’ haven’t set up their equipment properly yet, but it’s nice none the less.

DHL=Fuckwits

2006-11-13T13:10:00.000Z

Despite the fact that I have waited in for the entire morning I have just had a note through my door from the so called couriers at DHL telling me that there was nobody in to accept delivery of my Mobile Phone. Clearly the courier is a fucking idiot who doesn’t know how to use a doorbell to let me know that he's here. Now, because of his fuckwittedness, I have to go all the way to sodding Hayes to pick up the phone that they should have bloody well delivered. It was either that or have to wait in tomorrow when he’d probably fail to use the doorbell again. Actually it wouldn't surprise me if he'd forgotten to bring the phone with him and is trying to get out of it by simply popping a "could not deliver" notice through my door.

To make matters worse, I haven't actually slept. I stayed up all night writing and by the time I realised what the time was, I realised that I had not time to actually sleep. Bloody great.

Sorry, but I'm a bit pissed off, very tired and extremely fed up with having to rely on other people to get things right. Nine times out of ten the cock things up and cause me trouble. It was like that where I used to work too. Is nobody even vaguely competent. To get a job do I have to be a complete imbecile.

Well, I’m going to use the intervening time to get my food shopping from good old dependable Sainsburys.

If I ever get my phone I’ll write copiously and enthusiastically about how great it is. Either that or I’ll discover that it’s shit/broken.

Or maybe I’ll just go to bed. By the time I get back with my phone it’ll probably be about 6.30pm. There’s always heavy traffic out there at that sort of time. It really doesn’t help that I have to go past my old place of work to get there, so I’ll get a reminder of how crap my time there was. Anyway, by 6.30, I’ll have been up for 30 odd hours straight.

Sorry for the rant, I’m just pissed off about how undependable everyone is. It's just solidifying my view that the only person that you can rely on is yourself, and that's a pretty sad way to think.

Time for a change

2006-11-13T04:55:00.002Z

I'm fiddling about with the formatting of the blog at the moment. I'm going to try to personalise it a little with a new title page and maybe even add a few pictures to the actual blog.

I'm getting a new phone soon (hopefully tomorrow if o2 decide that I’m worthy) which actually has a better camera than my dedicated digital camera, which boasts a paltry 2megapixels. I'm going to use it to add a few pictures to my blog (provided that it's any good). I really do love my gadgets and I especially look forward to getting my phone upgraded every year. Sad I know, but what else do I have to look forward to? Anyway, it’s the Bond special edition silver version of the K800i, available for only 3 months exclusively on o2, so at least I’m likely to be one of only a few people to have one. I’m actually a pretty big fan of the James Bond movies which kind of lead me towards getting the phone. Plus all of my most recent phones have been made by Sony Ericsson, and I’ve been pretty happy with all of them. They don’t change too much, a few features are added or upgraded, bugs are ironed out and they make a few refinements. They do just get better and better to the point that I can only find a few minor faults with my K750i. Hopefully the K800i will have ironed those out.

I’m off to see the new Bond film, Casino Royale on Friday, so I’ll probably let you know what I thing some time after the weekend.

The Lazarus Post

2006-11-13T04:39:00.001Z

The original idea was to use this blog as a sort of journal of my day to day life. I figured that I’d maybe write an entry every week. The more observant among you may have noticed that this hasn’t exactly happened. With things as they are I haven’t actually been able top muster up enough of my own interest in my life of late, so I’m sure that everybody else would care even less.

I am going to try harder to keep the blog alive though. This time I’m not going to make any promises about updating it every day/week/month. That’s blatantly not going to happen. I will promise to try to write something (situation permitting) every time I feel the urge. I say situation permitting, because I offer start writing an entry in my head whilst I’m unable to get to my laptop. Apparently laptops don’t work too well in the shower and I seldom carry it with me on the tube on the way to a night out.

I’ve also written a few entries that I haven’t had the courage to publish. Generally I tend to first write my blog on word (to help iron out any spelling mistakes and ensure that I actually have a copy of my work in case blogger decides to reject my entry, losing it some where in the internets’ darkest corners. Those are, of course very valid reasons for typing it up on word first. Of course it gives me time to be a coward and back out. I'll try to go over them at some point, finish them off and post them over the next few weeks. Most of the time, these entries are written when I’m feeling particularly depressed. I worry that if I show people how low I get that they won’t want to know me or wont come back for a read. Is depression contagious? I start to think so. I’m stuck living at home, because I had to leave my job. Because of that with no one on a daily basis in whom I can confide. I’ve tried to talk to my Mum about it, but I only get told to shut up because I’m “making [her] depressed.” That’s why I ask, can you catch depression?

Anyway, right now I’m feeling ok.

I stumbled across a blog last night. The author was so prolific that it shamed me into resuscitating my own ailing blog. Actually, perhaps it's been so long that it's really more of a resurrection. I’d been feeling ok, for most of the later part of the week (the part that came after my actual birthday on Wednesday). I guess I’d been looking forward to the actual celebration with my friends on Saturday, which kept me going; maybe I’ll talk about that later. After that I started to flag a bit, though coming across the blog helped to cheer me up a little. It’s nice to have a window on a complete stranger’s life, even if they occasionally draw the curtains. (Is it sad that I’m so proud of that metaphor?)

But to my birthday celebrations. I was really bad at trying to organise things. I couldn’t really decide what I wanted to do. Actually that’s not true. I’d pretty much decided what I wanted to do right away, but for some reason I kept trying to find something else. I wanted to go to The Roxy, a club just off Oxford Street. I’d had a lot of fun there the last couple of times I’d been there, but that was the problem. I felt like I’d been there too often too recently. And I wanted to be original. Honestly, I don’t know why I think that I should try to do something new when I can virtually guarantee that I’ll have a great time by going back to somewhere I know and love. So in the end decided that we should meet at The Royal George, which is a great little pub, with a small, but high quality selection of drinks (they serve draught Grolsh, my favourite), great food (as I discovered for the first time that evening, at least I made a little nod in the direction of originality) just off Charring Cross Road.

It’s got a nice atmosphere and is always just crowded enough. You can even get a seat sometimes, just like we did that evening, which was fortunate since it’s pretty hard to hold a plate in one hand, a pint in the other and still somehow manage to eat without looking like some sort of bipedal wild animal. On the annexe to our table were a couple of girls. Oh that’s another thing; all of the clientèle are seldom unattractive, so you’ll always be able to keep you eyes happy.

We’d managed, after about an hour, to get a table at the back of the pub. It was a low table, in the shape of an L. Two comfortable leather sofas provided more than adequate seating. We took up most of the L whilst two girls sat right at the end point. One had dark, almost black, hair that covered much of her face from my perspective. The other was a tall, slim girl, with light brownish hair. She was pretty much bang on my type from a physical perspective (there were a few aspects that I didn’t like, but a few minor imperfections in a girl’s physical appearance seem to be a key aspect of my type. I kept catching her glancing over at me, though maybe she was just looking at me in disgust. Was I staring too much? I thought that I was just making the occasional glance, but I have less control over where I look and how long I take looking after a few drinks. And by that point I’d had more than a few drinks, courtesy of all my friends (thanks by the way). I was feeling pretty drunk by the time I was offered a “car bomb”, half a pint of Guinness mixed with something else, something creamy and sweet in a shot glass. It was nice, but I’m surprised that I wasn’t sick as I left the pub. Of course long before I left, the two girls at the end of the table moved. Was I staring? Was I freaking her out so much that she no longer felt comfortable staying? Maybe it was nothing to do with me at all? Maybe I’m just being paranoid. Still, the upshot is that I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. Bah, I thought, there’d be plenty of girls at the Roxy.

The music at The Roxy is always great, loads of stuff that I like, stuff that you can drunkenly dance too and not worry about having to try to look cool (just as well since it was patently obvious that I didn’t). In fact conversely, my friends who decided that dancing was beneath them looked anything but cool.

It was a great evening and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. One of my friends even remarked that I should have my birthday more often (and this coming from someone who’d only just celebrated his birthday the week before). It was fun to dance the night away; not the entire night, we left at 1.30am, I suppose I must be getting old. And on the subject of getting old, it really felt like all the girls out that night were just a little too young. Perhaps that’s the reason why I just felt like I couldn’t be bothered to pull. No, that’s not quite right. If I couldn’t be bothered it means that I wanted to but didn’t want to make the effort. I simply didn’t want to. I guess that I’d decided to have a good time, that was my mission above all else and making an unsuccessful attempt to pull would undoubtedly mar that. Actually last time I went to the Roxy, I did make a vague attempt, which was spurned. I felt quite bad about it afterwards, like I shouldn’t have made an advance that proved to be unwelcome. Perhaps that’s what put me off trying to pull. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter since I had a great time regardless.

Besides, I tend to prefer to meet girls in quieter, less dandy environments. I guess it’s no coincidence that I’ve tended to meet girls that I’ve subsequently gone out with in such circumstances. When I put it like that it tends to make me seem less shallow; it clearly takes more than simply good looks for a girl to be attractive to me. Or perhaps my limited natural charm is enough to distract the ladies from my relatively grotesque visage? Well, limited charm coupled with plying the poor unsuspecting lady with alcohol.

I made finally made it back at 3.30 after a trip on the Night Bus, followed by a 30minute(ish) walk back from Harrow-on-the-Hill Bus Station. It’s the fact that it takes quite so long to get back home when I stay out late that puts me off doing all that regularly. I did, however, discover that I’ve been making the journey unnecessarily long. Most nights when I have to take the bus I tend not to notice the route that the night bus takes to get back due to tiredness/drunkenness or just possibly just my black of observational prowess. As a result, whenever I’ve gone to the Roxy I’ve walked all the way to Trafalgar square to get the bus. Once I’m there it takes me a good 10 minutes or so to actually find the right bus stop. What I discovered the other night is that I could catch a bus from a bus stop just about 10 minutes walk from where I started. This effectively means that I’ve been taking a completely unnecessary 30minute walk that, coupled with the first part f the bus journey, effectively takes me around in a big circle. Doh. However, now that I know where I’m going wrong I should be able to knock a fair bit off my trip next time.

2006-06-20T00:25:00.000+01:00

Oh yes, I suppose I 'm back. It's been a while, but hopefully I'll have lots of time to contribute to this blog in the not too distant future.

The Forlorn Hope

2006-06-19T22:59:00.000+01:00

Well, it's official. I'm ready to leave my crappy little job. Needless to say I've been gradually getting more and more disillusioned by the intrinsic crapness of the whole company. I've been bored. I’ve been bored and I've made mistakes. I've been overworked and that’s lead to the odd error. Who said "to err is human". I'm not sure, but then neither, I'm sure, are my soon to be former employers. I think as far as they're concerned I need to be some sort of Nietzsche superman (less fun than DC comics Superman admittedly). Anyway, just a few months ago they decided to take disciplinary action against me for some of the vaguest reasons. They said that they thought I was unhappy. No really, that was what they said. Of course they came up with a few other things by the time of the hearing (and that must be the loosest use of the word on record). They refused to accept that I was overworked. They refused to acknowledge the fact that I was receiving more calls than my predecessor despite the testimony (now it really sounds like I’m talking about a court case albeit a kangaroo one) from someone who shares my office to the contrary. In fact they tried to imply that I was only getting more calls because my customers had to keep checking things with me because they were not confident about what I was saying. He then went on to say that he didn't have any confidence in me and then, without a hint of irony criticised me for my lack of confidence. Needless to say they decided to give me a warning. Not exactly a fair and balanced verdict. More than a touch heavy handed really. I'd complained that I felt like I was under constant scrutiny. They denied it. They told me that I should go to my boss for help if I needed it. As you’ll subsequently see they didn't really mean it.

So fast forward 6 weeks, by which point I'd managed to correct any of their minor issues. Of course that wasn’t good enough. So, they weren’t putting me under scrutiny yet they had been compiling a secret list of any mistakes that I'd made. Not only that they had decided that I was costing the company money by losing them orders. Let’s forget about the fact that my Boss had failed to order enough/any stock and I continually had to tell customers that they couldn’t have the stuff they wanted. Oh, and let's put to one side the fact that the stock records are so continually wrong that I quite frequently told customers that we had stock of what subsequently turned out to be phantom doors. Or maybe it was because the warehouse continued to deliver incorrect or damaged doors. Perhaps it was because orders were continually mis-invoiced by the accounts people. No, all of this was clearly of no importance. It was obvious, I was solely responsible for everything that went wrong in the company (that may be overstating it a tad, but only a tad). I must be responsible, since I was the one who had to spend huge amounts of my time fixing all the problems. And besides, there's no way that I could be making mistakes because they had reorganised my schedule so that almost half of my work for the week now had to be done on a Monday. Oh, and on top of that Monday was the day on which I had to attend a weekly meeting tat usually lasted for around 2 hours. And the fact that I couldn’t return all of the messages that had been left in my voicemail because by the time I left the meeting I only had 30mins to do so before all of my customers shut up shop for the day is invariably not going to be seen as a valid reason.

Oh, and this one’s brilliant. You remember what I said a couple of paragraphs ago about how they'd told me that I could talk to my boss when I needed help. They mentioned that he'd be very approachable. Lies.

I had a problem with a customer. One of the things that I was accused of was not sticking to company policy. So, when a customer asked for a free delivery when he'd ordered less than the qualifying amount I told him no. He insisted that he speak to my boss. I told him that he would say the same thing. He still insisted. So, I ended the call and relayed the message to my boss. Needless to say he wasn't prepared to make the call and told me to tell my customer just that. I duly did what he said and that, somewhat miffed protestations from the customer aside, was that. Except of course it wasn't because the whole episode was brought up as reason for disciplinary action against me. Quite frankly I thought that I was allowed to pass on messages from customers and ask for help from my boss. Apparently I must have been terribly out of order.

Well, this is pretty much all I'm going to say to them on Wednesday. They may be perfectly reasonable arguments, but then their not perfectly reasonable people. Their behaviour to date provides more than adequate proof to back up that assertion.

I'm tired of the whole thing really. I'm tired of working in an atmosphere of oppression, of working for a hopeless inadequate who's clearly incapable of running his own company and has to rely on a scapegoat (that would be me) to blame when he can only afford to kit out his house with a £100 toilet brush holder. Actually I think that his bog brush receptacle may have cost a little more than that, but that only adds to the validity of my argument.

It possibly goes without saying that I’ve made my mind up to leave regardless of the foregone conclusion. I mean outcome.

2005-12-19T00:33:00.000Z

A Moment of Weakness

Fantastic. That was completely over the top wasn't it. Well, a few days have passed and I feel a whole lot better about the events/emotional trauma/slight breakdown detailed in my previous entry. Really, it’s not so bad now that I've put everything into perspective. I'm glad I wrote it all down. Yes, its' embarrassing, and yes I could just delete it, but what would be the point of that.

I can't remember whether I mentioned this last time out, but I got a pay rise. A very, very pathetic one. I think the work nominal might be considered to be hyperbole when applied to my unbelievably small wage rise. I was told that, after a trial period, I'd be given a pay rise. Well they didn’t lie, but for fucks sake. I've only stayed there for so long to see how much I was going to get. I expected it to at least be enough to say that I can make a living from the job, but this is quite frankly not on. So, come New Year it'll be time for yet another new job. I get bored of work very easily so finding something else to do every few months has been something of a necessity, but even I'm starting to tire of the process.

Actually in some ways, by offering me such a paltry sum they've made it easy for me. If I'd actually been given the kind of money I should be getting for the job then it would probably be hard for me to leave. It just reminds me that whilst I was staring to get comfortable there it was never what I wanted to be doing.

My problem is that I crave the stability and respectability of a regular, well paid 9-whatever job whilst lusting after the something a little less regular but a hell off a lot more fulfilling.

It’s a lot of fun being me. Fun, but confusing.

2005-12-14T00:00:00.000Z

Fear, Self Loathing, Paranoia and Depression

It’s been a long time since I’ve bothered to post anything here. Is that because I haven’t found a moment to write? No, it’s probably because, over the last few months there haven’t been any moments worth writing about.

My job continues. I got promoted after three weeks to Account Manager. For the first month it was scary and interesting. I had a whole load of new things to learn and every day brought something new. Now I’ve learnt almost all I need to know and almost all of it bores me to tears. I was offered another pay rise the other day. To put it bluntly it was pathetic, an insult. Mostly it made me realise that the one redeeming factor about the job, the fact that it gave me some degree of self worth, was in fact a lie. This job is worth next to nothing. There are people who are working part time in the same offices who have a higher per-anum pay than I do. I have nothing. I am nothing. I have no intrinsic value. A touch depressing I know. But hang on tight dear reader, it gets worse.

I have a feeling of stagnating, of not going anywhere. At times like this I take the only logical course of action. I peruse the pages of Friends Reunited so that I may depress myself further by throwing my lack of any kind of worthwhile achievement into sharp relief by measuring it against the accomplishments of others. Most days it’s just depressing, today when I read it my first thought was to end my own life,

It strikes me that I’m missing out on three key elements in my life, the Holy triumvirate of happiness, as I pathetically call it.

Firstly I lack any kind of fulfilling employment. This wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the fact that my wholly unedifying job also fails to provide me with a decent enough wage to achieve the second of my three objectives, to have somewhere good to live.

Since I left university I’ve languished in various states of poverty, unable to coble together enough finance to affect an exit from my dreary home town.

Finally, but by no means the least of the three point of happiness is a point that leads to the cessation of loneliness. To find someone, be they man or woman (depending of course on you sexual preference. I myself am partial to the ladies) who can be with you and forever banish the feelling that you are alone in the world.

So I have none of the above. I expect you’re wondering why I brought up that font of all depression, Friends Reunited.

I should backtrack further I think.

When I was at university I was, perhaps, a little naive. Oh, and somewhat damaged. At the age of eighteen, just weeks before I left for the University of London’s so called “country campus” Royal Holloway, my dad died. Not, you might think, a good start to my university career. It had, as you might expect, a somewhat profound, and indeed detrimental, effect on my emotional stability.

The she came along. I won’t bore you with the details. She had her own problems to deal with. I tried to help, but I simply couldn’t cope. My own problems were already overwhelming me and I had little left to give. I suppose I was of little worth. She told me she loved me, over and over again. What’s worse is that I believed her. I should have realised that she wasn’t being truthful. If I had, if I had been as harded to the intoxicating effect of love as I am now I would never have fallen for such a beautiful lie, never fallen for such a beautiful girl. But I did. And tehn I failed. She went away, she saw the world and realised my lack of worth. She came back and let me go. It was a hard fall, a fall from which I’ve never really recovered. I try to tell people that I’m optimistic, that I don’t expect any future relationships to go like that one did. But by saying that now I’m the one who’s lying. I know why it will never work. I know the one thing that all my failures have in common. Me.

After her I was more broken than ever. I lost my ability to trust and to love without condition or fear. That’s gone forever, never to return. Again I struggle to not use a cliché, but I can’t put it any other way. She killed my capacity to love like I once did. In short she forever broke my heart(see cliché after cliché, I’m such a hack). Actually maybe i should say that she broke me.

I read today on that website of misery that she isn’t similarly afflicted. That she’s managed to get her life together. She has a good job, a place to live and someone new to love. Someone she’ll soon marry.

And here I am, still stuck here alone, each day making the 25minute car trip to a job I hate.

It’s funny, writing this has made me feel just a little better. Perhaps that should, in itself, tell me something. Is the act of expressing one’s emotions therapy in itself or is it merely the fact that I have spent the last hour simply writing the cause of my relatively improved mental state?

I read back on what I have written and, tragically, I realise that my writing is full of cliché, indicative of a lack of imagination and talent. It is little more than the ramblings of a man who has never been able to escape an emotionally adolescent state. Sorry to inflict it on you, but as my Ancient History teacher once told me, it’s better to include tan exclude and given the state of my blog of late, it’s clear that I have been excluding far too much of late.

I’d best post this before I change my mind about sharing, just as I’ve done so many times before.

Goodnight. Perhaps we’ll meet again some time.

2005-09-13T07:35:00.000+01:00

I’m back to bore you all a little more

Well, I really haven't posted anything in a while have I? I admit, I've been incredibly lazy. So lazy that it took me almost 6 weeks to actually post the long since finished entry that immediately precedes this one. Well, maybe I should update all you lovely people on my situation. So, when last we met I had just got a crappy little job as a telephonist for a company that sells doors. Well, my situation has improved... slightly. After a mere two weeks the company noticed my potential and promoted me to the position of account manager. This, I should assure you, has nothing to do with accountancy. That, I imagine, would be an accounts manager (note the "S"). I, on the other hand, am and account manager, which, as far as I can gather means I manage accounts. I say as far as I can gather because nobody has really gone to the trouble of explaining to me exactly what i should be doing. Still, I get my own desk and a computer, so I'm happy. I even got a pen holder today, so now I'm completely delighted. Actually the change of job is a good thing because now I don’t have to get up so early.

Tragically, I haven't done anything else of late, save for gradually losing more of my hair. At this rate I'll probably have Jack Nicholson's hairline by end of the year. Obviously my body's gradual decay isn't going to help me in my aim to get actually get a shag by the end of the year. Long-time readers of my blog (and I'm sure that there are at least two of them) will be aware that I, possibly foolishly, managed to fuck up the opportunity for a guaranteed shag. I actually told an ex-girlfriend what happened and she seemed to think that I'd done the right thing. Of course it could just be that she was relieved I didn't sleep with the girl because she couldn’t stand the idea of me copulating with anybody else. Somehow I doubt it though. But enough dwelling on the past, I must somehow work on a way of talking my way into the boudoir of some pretty young thing. I shouldn't really approach this so cynically. I am, after all, not a sex-obsessed teenager anymore. I'm now a sex obsessed twenty-something. But seriously, I was lying in bed the other day wishing I wasn't alone. I wasn't looking for shag though. Lamely I just wanted to have someone special close to me. Maybe that goes a little way towards explaining my reluctance to jump into bed with that girl the other month. Could I really be looking for a little bit more? Or am I just turning into a girl as the more overtly masculine amongst you might suggest?

Well, I really should think about going to bed now, what with having work tomorrow. Hell, I may even figure out a little bit more about what I'm supposed to be doing there.