A tale of show and tell and why you should tell early

'We have to say something soon' Nikala says to me on the way to the station one recent morning and not for the first time either.

'I know, but it seems weird to do it now after waiting so long, don't you think?' I reply, again not for the first time.

'Yes but it will be even weirder if the next time we see them they're all like "who's that small child with you?"

Woah there, I think. 'Woah there!' I say. 'Slow down a second there, it was totally you're idea not to announce it on Facebook in the first place!' I declare, the hint of a small smug smile tickling the corners of my mouth. Nikala has an almost Orwellian mistrust of sharing information with the world, whereas I am the opposite and will happily tell the world about my last doctors visit or share my personal details with the chip shop owners if they would only ask.

'Well we still could tell people in person' Nikala points out, and she is right, except in the last seven months and eighteen days, we have utterly failed to organise anything with our friends in order to tell them the news. Incidentally it is also at this point that I realise we have become somewhat hermit-like and really need to get out more.

'Right' I say decisively, 'it's too late, I am going to send them all a text, I'm sure they will understand.' and now the decision is made I feel a wash of relief flood through me, we will finally have told all that are dear to us, our exciting news.

I fish my phone from the depths of pocket and prepare for some serious thumb typing, but what's this? A text from some old friends of ours, ahhh that's lovely news, they are seven weeks pregnant and they wanted to let us all know with a mass text. Shit.

'We can't tell everyone now, it will look like we are competing with them. I don't want them to think we are stealing their thunder by saying "seven weeks? Try seven months! In your face losers!"

So now we have to decide how long is long enough before we announce our news. At this rate it will be the child's first birthday...

From the mouths of babes

So I was playing with my 2 year old nephew at the weekend when suddenly he came running over, wrapped his arms around me and declared: 'I love you!'

My heart melted and I gave him a hug and told him I loved him too. I was delighted and it really lifted my spirits in an otherwise quite stressful week. I was also secretly quite pleased in the typically childishly competitive way Nikala and I are like with each other, that he had said it to me first.

Of course the feeling was a little muted soon after when I observed him declaring his love for a small plastic sausage clutched tightly to his chest...

Look into my eyes, not around my eyes, but deep into my eyes.

Isn't it funny how uncomfortable with compliments most of us are. Maybe its a deep rooted sense of self loathing built into us all (oh that's just me?), or perhaps it is the simple Britishness of us and our inability to accept a compliment, especially when it is unsolicited.

Is this why we don't do customer service with the same gusto as our american cousins? David Mitchell said recently that he completely understands poor customer service and doesn't take offence at all. The job in which we expect good customer service from is invariably a pretty shit job and if they are smiling at you as they complete the current they are either a desperately stupid drooling idiot or are lying through their teeth whilst secretly wishing you would just fuck off. So that being the accepted truth, David would rather see a grumbling staff member approach him than otherwise, at lease then he would know the person was genuine and not about to start eating his shoe. I may be paraphrasing slightly but the sentiment was certainly there. 

I actually quite like a bit of friendly service even if it is a total lie. I don't mind this at all, in fact I welcome it and who doesn't honestly like being recognised as a regular in a pub or cafe? Who doesn't really like to be wished a good day? Its nice to know people remember you and that you like 3 slices of white toast with Marmite in the morning.

Marks and Spencers are an overly friendly lot, not that I mind this usually when they help me find stuff on the shelves or say sorry for keeping me waiting at the tills. I don't even mind a little friendly banter about the weather and how cold, warm or wet it is outside. I think perhaps they are taking it too far though when at the till the other day the checkout person said to me:

"Would you like a plastic bag sir? Oh and can I just say you have lovely eyes. That will be £5.27 please, how are you paying?"

Wait what? How do I respond to this barrage of questions. I didn't want a bag, but I also had to address the odd unsolicited compliment, and I was paying by debit card.

"Er no thanks, but thank you. um card please" I say.

That should do it, but wait, do they now think I haven't addressed the compliment at all? Playing it back in my head it sounds like I have just said no but thanks for the offer of a bag. Do I now also offer thanks for the compliment made about my eyes? But too much time has passed it will sound weird. I will look like a weirdo. I mustn't do it. Act like you didn't hear at all.

"um sorry what did you say?" Idiot. Wrong! I've entered into a conversation about how nice my eyes are now. Worse I've asked her to repeat it in isolation of the other questions that softened the delivery before. I cant now ignore this.

"Your eyes sir, they are lovely" she says completely deadpan, already calling the next customer over. "Till number 5 please" a pre-recorded voice confirms.

"oh um, ok. Erm thanks" I say, desperately trying to think of an appropriate response. 'Yours too' just doesn't seem appropriate. I am now suddenly aware that I have now completely overstayed the acceptable amount of time at the till post payment and so gather my goods and without another word I shuffle off. Like a weirdo.

I shop in Sainsburies now. They don't compliment me at all there.

Waiting

This morning was cold and perhaps the unusually warm October is finally at an end. I must say I am actually pleased about this possibility, the warm sun is all wrong for this time of year and its totally thrown me out of kilter.

Anyway, with it being cold I found myself entering the stations waiting room. Oh how I hate these places I thought, much like doctors waiting rooms these are a breeding ground for manky airborn diseases, calling it an incubation room would be far ore accurate. Crap there is always one person who is sneezing and spluttering. Why do they feel the need to share?!? Why cant they just stay at home and leave us alone to listen to our iPods and read our Kindles? Is that too much to ask for? Why should the rest of us suffer because you were too selfish to stay at home? Why should we have too... AAHHCHOO!

A silence descends the waiting room, even the iPods have paused and all eyes turn to me. I can see the disgust on their faces, the revolt. An air of disapproval descends. Oh god, it's me. I am he, that man. I am the sniffler, the sneezer, the nose wiper, the tissue rustler. I am the one that brings illness to all. Oh how I hate that man.

I start to justify myself; its just because its cold outside and toasty in here, Im probably allergic to newspapers or something. Im not really ill, I don't feel ill, don't condemn me for one little sneeze. And then a man enters and sits next to me. Rustling his paper, unbuttoning his overcoat he sits and...

...clears his throat with a little cough then proceeds to sniff a little. Get out! Get out of my waiting room.  Contagion! Contagion!  This man has bird flu cant you see?  How can you bring that filth to this waiting room for us all to catch? Have you no respect for the health of your fellow commuters? You disgust me.

Just one more wafer thin mint monsieur?

Today I have eaten too much. I am stuffed. I am overly fed, full to the brim, busting a gut. Today, I am fat.

Yet even as I write this I am poking in another Malteser - what is wrong with me? My God I cant stop!

How old am I? Nevermind.

Please note: I am officially freaked out by the 20th anniversary re-release of Nivana's Nevermind album.

To quantify this let me just say the following:  if a teenager were to buy this today, it would be like me buying a Pink Floyd record when I was 16 and showing my dad this cool new band I found...WTF!

Here is the original cover for the album that was released in 1991:

In the recreation below, the guy on the cover is the baby from the original:

I am old. That is all.

China My China.

So the date of departure is looming. Soon we will be off to China for much fun and frolics.

I have to admit I'm a little nervous and a little excited, and its funny because its the same thing that is making me feel both these emotions. Being so out of place. I've been to many different places but none so culturally different to what we are used to. None where we cant even recognise a place name on a street sign or read a simple menu. None where we have been utterly in the minority and so out of place.

So yes, I'm nervous, but its also what draws us to the place. How exciting!

Anyway if you are interested in following our adventures, I have started a new blog dedicated to the trip (so as not to bombard anyone who isn't!) which you can read here.

Break down the Wall

Hello all, its been a while I know. I have been shunning all forms of online interaction for quite some time now, no Twittering (or Tweeting as the vernacular seems to be - see thats how long I have been away from it), no Facebook updates, few emails sent, no blogging, and only a couple of phone calls now and then.

Its not because I don't want to contact anyone, quite the opposite, I would love to catch up with everyone all the time and therein lies my problem. It is all just so tiring. Its a full time job updating everything all the time, posting about how we have done this, about why that taxi driver should be watched carefully or what a painfully long but unspectacular train journey home I have had, or about what we had for dinner last night, and I am quite sure that for the most part, you aren't interested in any of it anyway, so I have put a digital gag on myself.

So why the break in silence now? Well, I recently went to see Roger Waters play his The Wall album in its entirety at the O2 arena and it seemed rather fitting that if I were to break my self imposed super-injunction aimed at me (what a load of nonsense that all is, but we wont get into that here), that it was to report about what an amazing event it was. I was expecting to enjoy it because I love the music, but lets face it, like so many other ageing rock bands that go on a farewell tour,  I was expecting it to be an "evening with", a bunch of old men sitting on a stage playing through their famous hits, the crowd enjoying the opportunity to see their childhood hero etc etc. Instead what we got was an extremely polished event that was as close to the movie version of the album as could be. Roger Waters performance was outstanding and the sets and light show were far superior to anything I have seen in any other concert. I leant over to my sister half way through and exclaimed that this was quite possibly one of the best, if not the best concert I had ever been to. She agreed.

I wont go on and on, but it was a great evening and also my first visit to the O2 arena, which had so much more going on than I thought. I was quite impressed.

Anyway, that is quite enough from me, Ill go back to my silence from now. Ill catch you all later, and if this post is anything to go by that might be some time...

Of course the other reason for the title of this post is that we will soon be walking along the Great Wall of China. I may be inclined to blog more often about our travels, but then again I may not (and who knows what China will let me talk about anyway!).

Buzz in, Buzz off, Buzz out...

Right, well my Buzz Stream (yes that is what I am calling it and I may have to claim ownership of that phrase if no one else is using it yet. I kinda like it so there) seems to be made up of entries from just two people and one of them is me. Either I have no friends left except for the magnicifant McCrudden, or Google's Buzz isnt as popular as it was in the first 24 hours.

There has been a lot of hoo-hah/hullabaloo/kerfuffle/commotion/turmoil (choose appropriately) about Google's Buzz. A lot of complaints about invasion of privacy etc. One minor starlett (some ex Buffy star that I cant rememebr the name of) suddenly found herself receiving thousands of comments on her personal gmail account. Boohoo I hear you say and I'm inclined to agree. After all, dont be in the public eye if you dont, well, want to be in the public eye, especially if your only claim to fame was a teenage vampire show 15 years ago. But, it does raise an interesting point for the rest of us. I for one didnt want to be automatically followed by some of my previous work colleagues as I'm quite likely to call one of them something they might take offense to in one of my blog posts, though to be fair, they are mostly a bunch of wankers and I know it shouldn't bother me. It's the principle of the thing I guess. 

If I was more like  I wouldn't even have a blog. She is so private she has several personas that have been created to fulfil the purpose of anonimity. A whole, completely seperate personality for things that require forms to be filled out, but that dont really require it to be you. You know the times, like when you need to log in to a particular website and they want you to register first and so on. A standing phrase in her family is "never give more inforamtion then you absolutely have to". Well I guess I can understand that too and maybe I am too open about whom knows anything about me. I am sure I will find my identity cloned and my bank accounts emptied in the not too distant future as a result, but I quite like this community of shared experience. It's a way to keep in touch for sure and you will always get the inevitable celeb stalking peeps and probably some will even find ways of adapting it to the sex industry in some way,  but despite all that I still think any new technology or ways of using technolog  is just plain cool. Maybe more in a Bill Gates kinda way and not in a Fonz kinda way, but just look at the developments we have already seen in our lifetime. Highly portable music systems, portable video, the internet, flat screen TV's 3D TV's, truely global instant communication and so much more. Simply amazing, I cant wait to see whats next. Yes, there will always be some that impress more than others (Google Wave for instance.*) but that is the nature of progress. Bring it on.


*Yes I know Google Wave was principaly a dev kit to be used to power other products/programs and not supposed to be a glossy finished product in itself. And yes I also know that Google Buzz in all likelyhood has a Wave underbelly.

GINGERS DO HAVE SOULS!!

South Park recently sparked a whole lot of controversy and put out an episode saying gingers don't have souls. This one doesn't have a brain. But Jesus loves him all the same...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY39fkmqKBM&feature=player_embedded#

Never had anything against the ginger folk myself, coming from a Celtic background there is a good chance that my offspring may be of the orange variety somewhere down the line. But this guy isn’t doing himself any favours, though to be fair it’s probably the American youth that is getting the worst image bashing here...

In fact, posting a rant like this on Youtube is almost guaranteed to promote ridicule. Stupid, smelly ging-er. I'm joking of course, ginger people are neither smelly nor stupid (well some are stupid as the above vid is evidence of), Everyone knows there is no difference between us and them, they just cant go out in the sun and you wouldnt want your daughter to date one... *
 
 
 
* I am of course still joking before you all start to complain. I love ginger people, they taste great.

You Cant Handle the Truth!

I'm back from my first visit to court. No I haven't run down some granny pushing a shopping cart full of cans, nor am I getting divorced (not married for a start)or anything else. In fact I was representing the company I work for and the hearing was about a (ex) client of ours that isn't paying their bills. We are right, they are wrong. It is a pretty simple case. This particular hearing was because the defendant (a weasly, insiduous, creepier version of Charles Dance - honestly, he could be his less successful younger brother!) is claiming that they never received the original court documents because apparently we sent them to number 4 not number 4a. A minor technicality that the judge was quick to point out was 'a very flimsy excuse', especially as their business owns the flat above the premises anyway.


The judge then proceeded to grill the defendant as to why he hadnt bothered to check upstairs with the tennant of the flat, dont you own the property? Does this happen regularly? How did you find out about this hearing then, seeing as the same address was used? Was the previous document selectively lost? And so forth.


Charles Dance then proceeded to squirm and abase himself in front of the judge: 'yes sir, of course sir, well I could'nt really say sir, no I didn't sir, yes sir, sorry sir'. I honestly thought he was about to turn and drop his shorts ready to be caned, to cry and beg the headmaster not to call his parents.


Anyway, I was really nervous before we went in, I felt oddly guilty (that's probably not a good sign is it?) even though I was neither defending myself or had even done anything wrong! I was armed with printouts of hundreds of email conversations, phone logs and other bits of evidence to support my case, but as it turns out, all I had to say was: 'Good afternoon', 'yes', and finaly: 'Thank you, good bye.'


So that was fun. Though of course this was only a preliminary hearing. The real fun will start when Charlie D tries to defend himself! I cant wait. Sod Law and Order, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal and Judge Judy. Its all happening here. When Charles Dance started to witter on pathetically about his ridiculous reasons for contending, I had to restrain myself from shouting 'YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH'. Truth to be told, I could barely stop myself from laughing as the judge ripped into him. Is it to late for a law career do you think?

Temporary ski-jumps - and mad people

Way back when, in the land that loves to build rickety tall structures to hurtle around in a small bathtub (I'm told they are called rollercoasters, but here in blighty we wouldnt know. The highest we get is some crappy thing in a coastal backwater town like Margate), they loved to build temporary ski jumps...

As mental as they look I think the craze should be revived for 2012...

http://deputy-dog.com/2009/06/madness-of-temporary-ski-jumps.html 

What really gets me is that there doesnt appear to be a whole lotta snow anywhere?!?!?!?

Kerazzy people...

Dodging a bullet...

Or a soft squidgy bit of spherical rubber in this case - I'm talking about Dodgeball of course. One of the guys in the office has suggested we start a "social Dodgeball team", he says he has a dream and that dream is to enter, nay dominate the local league in London Bridge.

Now when I was a lad oh so long ago, we played something similar.  There were no points, no teams, in fact there were no real rules to speak of.  It was essentially like "tag" or "it" but a ball, usually of the tennis variety though occasionally something harder, was used instead.  Obviously you threw it as hard as you could hence the name: "Sting"ball.

Anyway this got me thinking about the other playground games we used to play as kids and I realised an awful lot of them involved pain in some way.  Games of slapsies until our hands were raw, bouts of knuckles until they bled and so on.  One of our favourites was a variation of stingball, except we all lined up against the wall and the person who had lost the previous round had to elimiate us by booting a footbal at us as hard as possible, we were allowed to duck and dodge so long as you didnt step away from the wall and if you caught a ball in the face it was pretty painful, but we would still came back for more the very next break.  Perhaps the very worst game we played at primary school was the Tunnel of Beats.  How awful does that sound? I cant remember the rules and to be honest I suspect they were farely sketchy in the first place, but I do recall that it involved two lines of children through which you would have to run whilst they laid into you on your way past, quite literally a tunnel of beats.  It's hard to imagine that in these days of anti-antisocial behaviour things like that would be allowed, but I am sure children will find something else to do - indeed it would appear as though kids seem to enjoy the dangerous element of games that involve pain in some way, certainly more than I do now at any rate.

I read recently that schools are banning all sorts of traditional playground games for various ridiculous reasons.  Have a read here, where one school has banned conkers as they are considered to be an offensive weapon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1060708.stm

Come to think of it, you never see anybody picking up conkers anymore.  When I was at school we used to collect bags and bags of them.  We used all sorts of ridiculous methods to try and make them harder; pickling in vinegar, baking, varnishing.  None of them worked particularly well.  The best conker i ever saw turned out not to be a conker at all but a piece of carved mahogany.  Genius.

Right I'm off to start a conker tournament in the office, I'm working on a particularly strong sixer at the moment and I think it has the makings of a champion nut.

Sieg Miaoow

I just stumbled upon this incredibably oddball website (dont ask me how) depicting various kitty cats that bear a passing resemblance to Adolf Hitler.  Have a look for yourself here.

Some are remarkably similar and even appear to have the same "Adolf" haircut, parting and all.  Being the cynic that I am I suspect foulplay and a can of car spray.  Some people will do anything to make their cat appear, erm... famous?  Certainly couldnt class it as cute could you?  Maybe that is the most bizzarre aspect of all, a mass murdering psychopath fuckhead depicted as a cute fluffball that you just want to cuddle.

I think the world might be about to end, I'm off to get a brolly.
Heil Kitler:

Blogging from my phone

Ok so it's taken me a while to come around to the whole mobile
blogging thing, and I know I should ditch the blog in favour of
tweeting, but I just don't really like Twitter. Perhaps because I like
to ramble on and say more than Twitter will allow.

Anyway, I am sending this from my mobile via my gmail account, which
means I can write as soon as I feel the urge. Maybe this will mean I
post more often! Probably not though.

Acciiiiiiiiiid!

I learnt an important life lesson recently, one that I think would be beneficial to pass on in a pay it forward kind of way.

Acid can be used for clearing drains. Acid (in a Cokey/Cilit Bang type fashion) can be used for cleaning old pennies so they look shiny and new. Acid is slang for LSD or Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, a mild semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family. Acid is a sub-genre of house music that emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style. Acid is used in an industrial strength drain cleaner. Industrial strength drain cleaner is not the best product to use in your enamelled bath tub. Acid can burn your face.

When I was at school oh so long ago (those were the days, yes kiddies it's true, all those annoying adults were right. Once you pass 30 and you realise that work is all there is forever more with never a 10 week summer holiday in sight, you do indeed start looking back on those days as the best times of your life. Admittedly I began thinking that pretty much as soon as I left college... ho hum), ahem... yes when I was at school, chemistry lessons were an excuse to carry on making mixtures of unknown ingredients like you did in the kitched when you were a kid, perhaps we were supposed to know better by now, but we didn't care. No we were far more interested in making some foul smelling concoction and heating it in a test tube over a bunson burner. Totally safe. Well maybe not when we were heating sulphuric acid and chatting away with no safety goggles on, at least that's what one poor unfortunate peer of mine discovered. Yes young Sean Witter had been heating sulphuric acid in a test tube and it suddenly and violently boiled over and sprayed poor Sean's face. He wore the scars for the next couple of years at school and probably still does, he was lucky it didn't blind him. This is not just a gruesome trip down memory lane however stick with me, there is purpose behind my tales of maiming.

More recently there was a case in the news of someone being forced to swallow sulphuric acid. How utterly horrible! A man is accused of somehow making his ex swallow the acid. I cant even begin to imagine how painful that must have been. Apparently the court heard that as she lay dying he telephoned a plumber and asked what he should do because his son had drunk cleaning fluid. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/978673.stm

Now the reason for this un-characteristically serious point of discussion is as follows... Wibbly lines ensue as we fade back to a week or so ago...

For months now possibly even a year, ever since we had the builders in to knock stuff down and put stuff back up in our bathroom, we have had terribly slow moving water in the bath. For instance, Nikala would have a shower and 10 minutes later when it was my turn the water would be up to my knees. I was convinced this was because the builders had just rinsed all the rubble down the bath plug all that time ago and have been trying all sorts of things to clear it out. I used a plunger until I had blisters covering my palms (difficult to explain those at work I can tell you!), I have used so called Mr Muscle style products that have magic expanding foam that is supposed to clear the pipes out, more plungering, I bought a "steel snake" which you push down the plug around the u-bend and down the pipe to clear it. It was even recommended to me that I fill the bath up to the brim and let the weight of the water push the blockage out of the pipe. But it was all in vane, sure sometimes it made it slightly more bearable for a while, but the problem (and the water) remained and it was driving us crazy. Finally upon learning that my sister was going to be staying with us for a while I decided I needed something stronger. After all, if it was up to my knees after just one of us had used the shower, after three of us it would be overflowing. Besides, you can call me weird but I dont really want to share bath water with my sister. I didnt like it when I was a child and at 35 it feels a bit incestuous...

So I found myself in the local sells anything store on Putney high street when I spied a modestly packaged drain cleaner "as supplied to the professionals" and I presumed they didn't mean Bodie and Doyle. 'Excellent!' Thought I. 'This is just the stuff I need and it's only a fiver.' I should point out that I had also recalled Nikala's dad using something similar in their bathroom and Clive knows way more than I do about DIY so this is obviously what I need. Reading the "instructions" on the way home it said it was fine in plastic piping though it did need to be handled with care as it contained sulphuric acid. Perfect, this will sort it out once and for all!

I got home from work a couple of hours earlier than Nikala and got straight to work in the bathroom. Slightly wary of the stuff I pulled on some rubber gloves, put my Elvis sunglasses on and poured 100ml - 200ml of the stuff into the plughole of the bath. It instantly started fizzing like mad and brimming over on to the enamel, bubbles were coming up in what I can only describe as belches. Seriously they were coming forth like the burps of a man with a chronic stomach ulcer. Fantastic! I was a little bit nervous but it looked like it was working, the air must be bubbling up through the blockage as it gets cleared. Great stuff! 10 minutes later it was still doing it and I was a little bit more nervous. 'I know!' I thought, ' I will see if it has dislodged the blockage enough that water can flush it away now.' So I turned on the shower. Sadly it appeared as though the blockage as still there and the bath just filled up as usual. Hmm that's disappointing, I'll wait until it drains and try it again. Knowing it would take a while I went off to do something else for a bit. About 45 minutes later I noticed a foul smell throughout the flat and went to check on the bath situation. Not good. The water was still there and hadn't drained at all. The plughole was still belching it ulcer burps and there was a white scum on the surface of the water. That scum is obviously all the dissolved soapy hair mank that was down the plug. The stuff is doing its job, but why is the water not going down? I know Ill get my Steel Snake and give it a prod, the acid must be fairly dilute now with all this water so it should be fine. So I poke and twist it down as far as it will go, jiggle it about a bit and then took it out. It was blackened, pitted and scarred. Crap. Not good, not good at all and whats more I think that white scum on the surface of the water is actually the enamel coming off my bath. Crap, crap,crap!

Right, the nearest place to get any plumbing stuff was Homebase five minutes up the road. I had to go and get some varnish for another job anyway so I dashed off and went to see what I could get my hands on. I knew what I needed now, I needed something that would push water down the pipe rather than suck it out. I found this product that was either a total gimmick or it would be brilliant. It was a small canister of compressed air that you fit over the plughole and give it a one second burst. Apparently it was able to clear pipes up to 30 meters away. I had no way of knowing if it would work but I had to try. £8.99 and 5 minutes later I am back in the bathroom, but I don't want to plunge my hand into acid water. Hmmm what to do. I ended up scooping out the water with a washing up bowl and dumping it down the toilet. OK, here we go. And with that I placed the canister over the plughole and pushed... Totally forgetting the first rule of plunging is to cover the overflow otherwise there is no pressure to go down the pipe. What instead happened is that the blast of air shot down the plughole, round the u-bend (collecting it's contents on the way) then proceed to go up and out of the overflow which was conveniently located at face level. All I saw was a jet of brown liquid, hair and gritty scum out of the corner of my eye before one side of my face, and the opposite wall was coated in this acidic muck.

Oh my God! I have just Dr Crippin'ed myself! I've Phantom of the Opera'd my face! I am the grown up Sean Witter! What the hell am I going to do? In a bit of a panic I leaped up off my knees and dashed into the hallway, then realising I needed to clean it off I ran back into the bathroom to rinse my face in the sink, but arrrrgh I had acidy rubber gloves on! Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger! I was like the proverbial headless chicken, running in every which way. I was convinced I would be hideously scarred, all the times I had heard about incidents with acid were running through my head.

I managed to calm down, rinsed my face a lot with water though I was trying to remember what household product was an alkaline that could be used to negate the acidic effects. I felt a lot better and my face was no longer feeling like it had been instantly sun burnt in the Sahara.

Nikala got home and she was understandably quite worried, she remembered that baking soda was an alkaline and mixing up a paste she applied it to my face and the rest into the bath to try and halt the disolving enamel. Of course, seeing as my face was no longer burning from the acid, putting an equally strong mixture of an alkaline substance on my face was probably not a good idea. In fact I can confirm that it also burns quite badly. Nevertheless I rinsed it all off straight away and I'm all fine and unscarred. Sadly the same cannot be said for the bath, you will be pleased to hear that with a couple more (correctly applied) blasts of the air canister the pipes were fully cleared and the water drains fantastically now. The enamel now has what I like to call a non-slip surface to stand on, it actually feels like the surface of a pumice stone but hopefuly any prospective house buyers will decide against stripping off for a bath during a showing of the flat...it is lovely and white though!

Astute readers may have noticed the earlier reference to the Pay it Forward movie. To elaborate for those that didn't, one of the main characters (not annoyingly good child actor Haley Joel Osmet, but the teacher played by Kevin Spacey) has suffered from nasty facial burns, though if memory serves (and it is getting increasingly worse these days) they were from a fire and not acid in the face.

Meat Suits, frivolous waste of meaty goodness or pure genius?

I was at a friends wedding recently and the catering was superb, instead of the usual sit down affair there was an incredible barbecue (unsurprisingly most of the guests and family were from the southern hemisphere) which offered an amazingly varied menu, all of which was cooked beautifully. Meats of all description, some odd, but very tasty South African fish, the name of which I had to ask several times as it was typically Afrikaans (it was a snoek, or snook or shnoke, or shnook or something like that).

Anyway, as is often the way in a buffet scenario, the question of stacking was on the minds of everyone: "How much should I take? What is the international stacking etiquette? Is there an acceptable plate height?" All of these were running through our minds and you could see everyone subtly eyeing up the "opposition" trying to ascertain the general level of greed in the queue. "Will there be enough left for me after that fat bastard gets up there?" and so forth...

As it turned out there was a stupid amount of food and the groom was trying to give all the guests doggy bags as they left. He and his lovely bride were flying out on their honeymoon the very next day and he couldn't bare to see all the meat go to waste, and that was when it happened. The brainwave of the century. A meat suit. he could nibble all the way to Kenya and whats more I reckon that wearing a suit made of meat would have quite a cooling effect, like a personal environment suit. Have you ever felt a raw steak, lovely and cold ( I suspect this might be why they are traditionally placed on a black eye?), just imagine a whole suit made of steak, and slices of lamb. mmmmmmmmmmm.......

I reckon it would be quite the fashionable attire as well. A theory I recently had confirmed when I stumbled across this fashion students meat dress (though I think she has ruined it by sealing the meat in plastic!). http://www.jiajem.com/meatwad.html

Return of the movies in a nutshell (unlike this title)!

Long term followers may recall a section I wrote on my old website, yes it's the return of the movies in a nutshell!

This week:

BATMAN
Wealthy man assaults the mentally ill. THE END

Pulp Fiction
John Travolta and Samual L Jackson make small talk and shoot people in interesting ways but in the wrong order. THE END

Star Wars: Episode III
Anakin becomes Darth Vader - To nobodies surprise. THE END

My face Space Twit book update

A little while ago I told you all how I had signed up to Twitter, well as suspected a month or two has gone by and I haven't updated my status at all. I have come to the conclusion that I don't want people to know what I am doing or thinking every second of the day, but more to the point I simply cant be arsed.

So if you really want to know what is going on in my life, then you can read the very occasional post I put here or better still give me a call. I wouldn't bother writing me an email or a letter as they are likely to be put to one side as well. Don't get me wrong I always have every intention of writing back, but the simple fact is: I am lazy. I have trouble motivating myself to do anything, so much so in fact that I thought I ought to test for diabetes the other day as I was literally struggling to find the energy to put one foot in front of the other.

It turns out I'm just lazy though.

Chronic Case of the Mondays

Except that it's Tuesday and whats more I know I will feel the same tomorrow and probably Thursday too.

Yup it's the day after the 2nd May bank holiday weekend and while we all love to have a long weekend, ultimately it reminds us that being at home is infinitely better than being at work. Even when you spend a good portion of that weekend getting to know the inside of several hospital waiting rooms. This probably needs a fade out to about a month ago...

Wibbly lines ensue.....

It's about a month ago and I am in the spare room playing a bit of Call of Duty 4 online while Nikala is very kindly cooking us both some dinner in the kitchen. I'm close to being promoted to sergeant and I've got one of the pesky Russian's in my sights, oh he's a dead man he just doesn't know it yet. Except that as usual I have been killed again and I'm getting nowhere. I'm sure I remember a time I was good at these games; I decide they must be cheating and by "they" I mean everyone else. It's the only logical explanation for my low scores.

Nikala bursts into the room, hand clapped over one eye. 'I've just gone and poked myself in the eye and it really hurts! How stupid is that?!'

'Oh hon, that's horrible' I say 'I've done it before and really stings, but it should be alright in a few minutes. Go and sit down and I'll finish din dins'

'I don't know how I even manged to do it' she says, 'I even had my glasses on!'

A couple of hours later and it hasn't subsided, in fact Nikala's eye has puffed up and she cant open it at all. The pain is constant and even moving her eye is agony. Water is streaming down her face and quite understandably she is a little bit panicky about permanent damage to her sight. Poor thing hasn't even been able to eat her dinner.

'Do you think I need to go to casualty?' Nikala asks.

'I know it really hurts but I don't think you need to go right now. Lets see how it is in the morning and if it is still really bad I'll take you in.' I reply. Yes I know you are thinking "what a heartless bastard!" and in retrospect I do feel very bad about not going straight away, but in my defence (and it's a flimsy one I know) Nikala has been known to panic and assume the worst every now and then.

So one restless and mostly sleepless night later, I have called in to work and let them know I am taking Nikala to hospital. A couple of hours later and the nurse is putting some horrible yellow dye in Nikala's eye and shining a blue light in her face. Calling me over she points out the problem.

'You see that area of bright green? That is the corneal abrasion that she has on her eye. It does look quite bad, more of a gouge than a scratch. You will need to make sure it is lubricated all the time. It should heal quite quickly but if it is still hurting in 24 - 48 hours then you should go to see a specialist eye unit at either Moorfields or St Mary's.'

This is an example of what I saw:

She gave us some antibiotic eye gel and some drops and off we went. Poor Nikala couldn't do anything as she still couldn't open her eyes. Even opening the uninjured eye caused her pain as it was impossible to move the eyeball independently and any movement of her injured eye caused her excruciating pain. I was working from home and guiding Nikala around the flat as best I could, I even read to her a little to try and alleviate the boredom, but it was pretty miserable and she was still quite scared about possible permanent damage to her sight.

Needless to say, the next morning Nikala was still in a huge amount of pain and still couldn't open her eyes so we made arrangements to go and see the specialist unit at St Mary's Hospital in Sidcup. Amazingly we didn't have to wait for long and within 10 minutes of our arrival Nikala was being examined by one of the ophthalmologists (see how I've learnt the correct terminology?). The first thing she said was:

'Oh you poor thing, you've given yourself quite a gouge there! Believe me it's more painful then childbirth and I can confirm that from firsthand experience.'

I always find it much more reassuring when I know the doctor examining me has undergone the same injury/operation/illness. Means they actually have some empathy rather than the usual abrupt cold matter of fact recital they normally give you.

The very next thing she told us was that Nikala had been putting the wrong medication in her eye and that it was no wonder it was still hurting. So that was nice, glad we went to the first hospital then. Anyway, after a little more motherly clucking and further reassurances that although it was very painful, it wouldn't be permanent and should heal quite quickly with the right medication (which she provided). It should start to feel a lot better in a day or two but might take up to a month or so for it to fully heal.

'Just keep putting in this lubricant until it runs out then you can just use something from over the counter for a month or two. Be particularly attentive when you go to bed and put more in even if you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet or something'.

So Nikala did just that for the next month until the gel ran out, about a month later.

Wibbly lines....... back to present day (well a couple of days ago but you get the idea)....

So we are now almost exactly a month later and the antibiotic eye gel has run out. Never mind we say, we can just get some over the counter stuff from the chemist according to the specialist. So that's what we did and Nikala started using it on Wednesday last week.

On Wednesday night, no more than 1 hour after we went to bed, Nikala sits bolt upright in bed and wakes me up saying she was hurting. Now in my bleary eyed, sleep interrupted state, my brain couldn't quite compute what she was saying and so helpfully, my brain filled in the gaps. What I heard was "James, I have hurt my fingernail, I think I need to go to casualty." I couldn't understand why that would need a visit to casualty at 1:45am and so replied 'cant you just put a plaster on it, there are some in the kitchen', though I'm sure it probably didn't sound as clear as that. I then promptly rolled over and went straight back to sleep. Five minutes later Nikala woke me up again in a panic because she thought she was blind and I groggily came to and realised what was going on. Oh I should probably point out that I had taken a client at work out for drinks that evening so I was a little bit worse for ware, certainly couldn't drive. Another five minutes later and I had dressed myself and Nikala and called a minicab to take us over to the nearest casualty.

At 2:05am We crept out of the flat, careful not to disturb my sister who was staying with us for the night as she had an important interview the next morning and had flown back from her holiday in Italy especially for it. We bundled into the cab and off we trundled to the fabulous Lewisham Accident & Emergency unit...

... at 7:25am we saw a doctor.

In the intervening 5 hours and 20 minutes we saw a variety of individuals, several people in handcuffs, a few crazies burbling about aliens and government conspiracies and a couple of unintelligible Scottish drunks possibly looking for something or someone though that is a total guess as I am not versed in the Tennants Super tramp water language they were speaking.

So here we are again, more yellow dye in the eye, more blue light, the doctor saying it looks like a bad scratch and that we are probably right about it being a reaction to the new medication. He gave us some more of the old stuff and sent us on our way. We were shattered and both called in to work to tell them we wouldn't be in again before struggling home and crashing into a coma.

So the next day was Friday, a day Nikala and I had booked off for over a month, but Nikala's eye was still hurting. Not trusting the crappy Lewisham doctor we decided to return to the specialist unit in Sidcup where we learned that it had nothing to do with the new eye gel, other than it was maybe a bit to "sticky". Apparently the cornea is made up of several layers, and although over the last month the top layer had appeared to heal it hadn't attached itself to the layers beneath.

(look away now if your squeamish)

What had in fact happened was that Nikala's eye had dried out a little overnight and her eyelid had lightly stuck to her eye. Upon opening her eye the lid had dragged off the new layer of the cornea, a bit like picking a scab. And thus the excruciating pain, and a return to square one in the recovery process. So here we are, Nikala now has a host of ointments, gels and drops to put in her eye almost every hour of the day and we have been told that although it may appear to heal quickly this could re-occur at anytime anywhere up to 2 years from now. So that's a happy thought. Still, thankfully she hasn't lost her sight or been "permanently" injured. But she has had today off work whilst I still had to go in. I'm thinking of poking myself in the eye tonight, I may do it after I have wiped some chili on my fingers...

My Face Space Book

So, I have succumbed and joined the Twitter community which is the latest facebook/myspace phenomenon. I have no idea what all the fuss is about but its been in the media recently; people organising search parties, celebrity stalking and so on.

So I thought it was about time I found out about it, if only so I can say I'm down wiv da kids...

I'll Twitter you all about it later (is that how you use it???)

Who's Watching the Watchmen?

Well I, like so many other fans, certainly will be but comic writing legend and author of the Watchmen wont be. Not now, not ever.

Based on the comic written by Alan Moore, the movie adaptation of the Watchmen is released this weekend and it looks unusually promising. I say unusually, because previous adaptations have been extremely disappointing (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta) and Alan Moore himself hates comic to film adaptations. I once heard him on the radio saying he was so angry at mess that was made of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, that he refused all proceeds from the film and future films, donating the money to charity instead. He was recently interviewed regarding Hollywood's love of comic book movies and this is what he had to say. As you can imagine he pulls no punches, so the squeamish should look away now!

“The main reason why comics can’t work as films is largely because everybody who is ultimately in control of the film industry is an accountant. These people may be able to add up and balance the books, but in every other area they are stupid and incompetent and don’t have any talent. And this is why a film is going to be a work that’s done by dozens and dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of people.They’re going to show it to the backers and then they’re going to say, we want this in it, and this in it... and where’s the monster?”

“We had one particularly dense Hollywood producer say, ‘You don’t even have to do the book, just stick your name on this idea and I’ll make the film and you’ll get a lot of money – it’s… The League Of Extraordinary Animals! It’ll be like Puss In Boots!’ And I just said, 'No, no, no. Never mention this to me again.'”

“There is more integrity in comics. It sounds simplistic, but I believe there is a formula that you can apply to almost any work of modern culture...The more money that’s involved in a project the less imagination there will be in the project, and vice versa. If you've got zero budget, you’re John Waters, you’re Jean Cocteau, you’re going to make a brilliant film.”

“100 million dollars – that’s what they spent on the Watchmen film which nearly didn’t come out because of the lawsuit, that’s what they spent on The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen which shouldn’t have come out but did anyway. Do we need any more shitty films in this world? We have quite enough already. Whereas the 100 million dollars could sort out the civil unrest in Haiti. And the books are always superior, anyway.”

“The League film cost 100 million because Sean Connery wanted 17 million of that - and a bigger explosion that the one he’d had in his last film. It’s in his contract that he has to have a bigger explosion with every film he’s in. In The Rock he’d blown up an island, and he was demanding in The League that he blow up, was it Venice or something like that? It would have been the moon in his next movie.”

“Back when I wrote Watchmen I still trusted the viperous bastards, I had a different feeling about American superhero comics and what they meant. I’ve recently come to the point where I think that basically most American superhero comics, and this is probably a sweeping generalisation, they’re a lot like America’s foreign policy.America has an inordinate fondness for the unfair fight. That’s why I believe guns are so popular in America – because you can ambush people, you can shoot them in the back, you can behave in a very cowardly fashion. Friendly fire, or as we call it everywhere else in the world, American fire.If you’re up there in the stratosphere so that everything on the ground looks like ants, it might be insurgents, it might be an Iraqi wedding party, it might be some English soldiers. There’s that beautiful bit of dialogue from the cockpit video when they say, “You’ve just bombed a load of Brits.” Their pilots say, “Woah, dude, we’re going to jail.” This is the Iraq war, not Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure!I believe that the whole thing about superheroes is they don’t like it up them. They would prefer not to get involved in a fight if they don’t have superior firepower, or they’re invulnerable because they came from the planet Krypton when they were a baby.I genuinely think it’s this squeamishness that’s behind the American superhero myth. It’s the only country where it’s really taken hold. As Brits, we'll go to see American superhero films, just like the rest of the world, but we never really created superheroes of our own.And as Londoners, when we had that little bit of bother on the 7th July 2005 – after America had two big buildings blown up... Terrible shame, but we had a lot more than two buildings blown up during the ‘40s when America was providing most of the munitions to Hitler...But when it happened in England, what was the reaction of the American forces on the 8th of July, as soon as those bombs went off? They pulled the American servicemen outside of the M25, because London was too dangerous for the armed and trained American military men. Then after a few days, they thought, actually, this does look kind of bad, even for America, let’s creep back into London and pretend we’ve been here all the time.”

The hairy beast of a man is obviously very passionate about his creations and rightly so. i just hope that Hollywood hasn't messed this great story up as well. We shall see.

"Move along please sir...

... and sleep it off somewhere else."

This is the greeting I received at the station this morning. "Goodness!" I can hear some of you exclaim, "surely he cant have been pissed so early in the morning?".

Well you are correct. Far from being drunk, I was and in fact still am, suffering from my 2nd batch of flu this year. Having arrived early at the station after dragging my sweaty, shivering carcass out of bed to go to work, I decided to wait in the ever so slightly warmer "waiting room". I had my eyes closed and not long after doing so someone in a Network Southeastern uniform came and attemepted to move me along like a drunk/drugged homeless person.

Clearly I shouldnt be in work...

_

Crazy Taxi

Well it seems like every post I make is few and far between, always with the same title of: "long time no see".

So I cunningly avoided that this time, by .. wait a sec.. damn, by talking about it I havent avoided anything! Instead I have just rambled on and wasted all our time chatting about nothing in particular. It's like being in a taxi having to make that annoying small talk with the driver, knowing you will never see him again and not really caring about what the latest tragedy in his life of traffic jams is. Speaking of which, you would not believe the cab journey I had the other day...

--- wibbly lines cross the screen and the image fades to 18:27 outside the front doors of Green Fields offices ---

Exiting the building is me, looking tired but with a hint of relief at it being the end of the day, at the end of the week. I'm carrying a box and making my way to a large black car.
"ello boss, jus' tha one box is it?" The cab driver said in a very thick Pakistani accent.
"huh? Oh, um.. yes. Thanks. Shall I put it in the back?" I say.
The cab driver opens the boot and I slide the box in before climbing into the back seat, fully prepared to doze off until I get home.
"bad traffic this way boss. I'll try and go down this road instead k?"
"err ok" I say, thinking all the while - I dont care, so long as its the right direction just go!

I should point out at this point that I would normally be on a train in a mild coma by this point on my journey home. Holding a conversation was proving to be a tad difficult but the guy was persistant, boy, was he persistant.

"not a bad area round here boss, expensive though is it? This where you work is it boss?"

Too many questions for me.. I made some vague responses and there was silence. Then I make a fatally stupid error and ask "So you got a long shift tonight?" Stupid! Oh my god, what have I done? What on earth possesed me to say that? Sagging a little I resign myself to the fact that there will be no stopping him now.

"yes boss, 5 till 5. Started at 5pm, finish at 5am, then I have to go home; I live in High Wycombe; and start my other job as a postman at 6am."

Annoyed at myself I still cant help but fuel the fire. " You have two jobs? Sheesh, when do you sleep?"

"Well boss" he says, "I finish at about 11am then I have about 4 hours sleep before starting here again. Except on Sundays that is boss. On Sundays I just sleep all day." He pauses before adding "Unless the kids wake me".

I dont know whats wrong with me, its like I'm on an icy hillside sliding down towards the motorway at the bottom, but still I continue. "Two kids huh? must be tough"

He chuckles and continues with "Yes boss, can be... It is my sons birthday in June, he will be five. No wait four. No, no, no he will be five in June. My Daughter she will be ten in June. Do you have children boss?"
"Not me" I say. "not yet anyway"
I settle back into the chair, mind wondering aimlessly as Clapham Common slides past. But I'm brought back soon enough. "So what do you think about London then boss? You like living here? Whats it like where you live then? Is it nice boss? What do you think of Bracknel, Bracknel is a nice place, not quite as nice as Marlowe but then Marlow is very expensive isnt it boss? I dont like to live in London boss, I like it out in High Wycombe. I like the quiet innit boss?"

Slightly stunned by this barrage, I sidestep it all by asking how long he has been in the UK for, all the while inwardly cursing myself for getting involved at all.

"Oh I been here for 7 years now innit boss. I was a very successfull businessman in Pakistan with a 12 bedroom house, 3 cars and a driver. My brother and father are there doing very well, but I sold up and with £25,000 came over here to start my own business selling used cars. But it didnt work to well is it boss and so now I do this an the postman job."

"Dont you want to go back home?" I ask

"Yes boss but my wife, she dont like to go back for long times. She likes holidays there but she is from here innit. Her mother and father are here so she doesnt want to go."

I've got some kind of disease. I say "I'd love to go and see more of the world." What the bloody hell was that?! Why am I opening another avenue of conversation?

"Oh boss, Pakistan is amazing. There is this valley; and I'm not lying or making it up when I say this; that is so beautiful. you would think it was paradise my friend." When did I become 'friend' and not 'boss'? "There are a few English out there boss" ahh back too 'boss' now.

"Really?" I mumble

"Yes boss, the doctor told them they needed to be somewhere warm for some skin condition or something" Oh my, how lovely. Thanks for sharing that. "not that its that warm. In fact in the winter we get more snow than you do boss. Very cold it gets. Very Cold. Seventeen feet of snow last year boss."

Tooting Bec Lido slips by my window and I remember diving into the freezing water one summer when I was a kid. I must have missed something that he had been saying because now he is talking about how important it is to look after your parents and that not enough people do.
"so my daughter was going to all these Christmas parties; we're Muslims but you know..."

"of course, its hard for children when all their firends are having parties and stuff" I say

"Yes boss, we're Muslims" Still? And I thought you may have converted since you last told me. "and there was this old lady on my post round that would always be asking if she had any letters from America. Her daughters live there boss, but they dont write to her you see boss?" I sat there trying to remembr the last time I had written a letter to anyone. "So last Christmas, and we're Muslims" Thanks I got that "we took her round to our house and she was really happy innit boss. She made cake and had a really good time she said. And we're Muslims"

"yes" I agree, "it's important to look after the older generation, and I don't think religion should be anything to do with basic human kindness" Am I getting into a religious debate with a cab driver?

Well whatever it is my philisophical friend agrees. "Thats right boss, thats right"

There is a long period of silence as we approach Crystal Palace and I begin to think that he has exhausted himself. After all, he cant possibly go through all this with each client can he? Could he really? Surely it would be tiring for him as well wouldnt it? I wonder what time I will get home tonight? Will I get home earlier than if I was on the train? I wonder if I could drive into work... That is a disgusting coloured car, what's that dog doing does he have an owner? look at the state of this high street I cant believe it's still as bad as this around here.

Then breaking my reverie the cab driver hesitantly asks: "Boss, can I ask you a question? Dont be offended by it" what the hell are you going to ask me that I would be offended??? " but what do you think about the September eleven Amreican thing?"

I have to admit, it took me a little while for what he was asking to sink in but when it did I realised pretty quickly that I ought to be fairly diplomatic here, especially until I figure out what he really thinks about the whole thing. "Umm, in what sense exactly?" that ought to buy me some time even if it does make me look a bit dense.

"Well boss, I mean do you think it really happened?" Oh no... I sense a conspiracy theory looming. "You know what I mean boss? You think it really happened or did America want to go to war?" oh this is bad, where are we? Crystal Palace Parade, five minutes left of the journey...

I take a breath and say "Well, who can really say for certain? I dont think anyone really knows what happened exactly, but I doubt any country would do that to themselves. Do i think it was islaamic extremists? Probably. Do I think America's wars were entirely justifiable? Maybe not." damn it I'm now talking politics and religion at the same time. I am willing the journey to come to an end. This is getting weird.

He looks up at me in his rearview mirror and says, "Boss, did you know that on any normal day there were over 25,000 jews working in the buildings, in the what do you call them? The Towers. The Twin Towers. But on that day there were none. What does that make you think boss?" and there we have it the conspiracy theory. The theory that Israel did it to provoke war. It's not even a new theory. And frankly its the weakest of them all.

"Yeah I've heard that. But it seems unlikely to me" I say. I deliberately cutting it short, not wanting it to go any further.

Not so long after, we are are approaching Beckenham and I'm nearly home. "Nice this place boss, what are the people like here? Are they nice boss? Are they mostly English?"

"um yes I suppose they are mostly English, though I dont think thats nescessarily a good thing." I say, wondering where this is leading.

"Its good boss, I think there are too many foreigners coming in boss, they bring an area down innit"

Has he forgotten where he is from? "umm how long did you say you have you been in the UK?" I ask.

"Oh about seven years now boss." So at what point did you decide to close the door behind you? I think to myself. Then I realise where we are and escape is suddenly a definate possibility. "Aha this is me. Thanks very much, how much does that come to?"

I pay him, grab my box from the back and I'm home. I think I am more tired than I was when I left work an hour or so ago.

--- wibbly lines cross the screen and the image fades back to the here and now ---

Wow that was much longer than I expected it to be! But I had to let you know about my bizzarre journey. I bet your still wondering what was in the box arnt you? heheheh

Back from France and tired of cheese...

I know what your thinking but it's true; I am sick of cheese. Yes sick of cheese and sick of baguette's. I'm sick of cheesy baguette's and croque monsieur's (actually, I never liked them... way to wet and French like for my tastes).
But despite all that, I'd still rather be there then here at work...

I suppose I should tell you why we were in France in the first place shouldn't I? Well, Nikala's brother Aaron and his fiance Katie were getting married, fortunately they had got the professionals in to sort it all out...

... I'm lying of course.

A few months ago, when Aaron and Katie got back from holiday and we all saw the glittering ring on her finger, Nikala jumped up and offered her help (as any discerning sister would I'm sure). Oh yes, Nikala offered to design and make the tiara, the veil and decorate the wedding cake; none of which she had done before. Still, she is a fantastic designer and we all had faith in her. of course that started to wane on the night before we were due to leave at 4am to go to France for the wedding when Nikala decided that the veil wasn't right and a new one must be made then and there despite the fact that the bride to be was already delighted with the first one. Thank goodness the tiara had been a triumph! (still a little worried about the cake at this point but I didn't want to rock the boat).
We arrived in France, the veil was loved (the new one too), the tiara was looking fabulous and everyone said Nikala should go into business making them (an idea I fully support by the way!), then we were introduced to the cake. Nikala and Aaron's dad had made this cake which was stunning to say the least. Clive (Nikala's dad) is well known for his fruit cakes, enormous quantities of alcohol are usually soaked into it well in advance, but this was a surprise...
The cake was made up of three layers. The bottom layer alone took twenty seven hours to cook and weighed about 35lbs! and there were another two layers to go on top of it.... how on earth were we going to make this look like the tiny picture Katie had given us of the Mexican looking cake she wanted?
Right, lets at least get the white icing bit on.
Day before the wedding. We make the white fondant icing (yes I know all the types of icing now). We could have bought icing with us but we had been told all the ingredients were there. no problemo, the icing is made... tastes a bit odd though..weird. Aha! the liquid glucose is honey flavoured, that wont do at all! OK so in the UK for some odd reason (something to do with cough medicine apparently) you can only buy this stuff in chemists; of course being France nothing was open... it was a bank holiday and lunchtime to boot. Right we would have to go first thing in the morning, the wedding wasn't until 4pm anyway, we would be fine. Of course we still had 58 daisies to cut out of marzipan, we weren't panicking at all... oh no... not one bit... gulp.
Oh joy! What amazing luck! the daisy cutter was in fact a big pile of feculent maggot crap and didn't work! BumArse (that became the expletive of the week)! What were we going to do? there was nothing for it, I had to cut them out by hand. I knew when Nikala offered to decorate the cake that I would end up losing hair over it.
Wedding day. No icing on cake. Marzipan daisies drying on plates all over the kitchen. Alarm at 06:30.
OK we were up, we were off to get liquid glucose. We were spurned at every chemist around and sent to the supermarkets, whom also had no liquid glucose. BumArse. OK panicking we drive back to the house, four hours wasted looking for that stuff! One of Clive's friends had arrived to say hello, what a godsend! It only turns out he was a master baker 20 years ago! He whipped up some royal icing and iced all 3 layers in about 45 minutes flat... phew! Now all we had to do was paint he marzipan flowers and stick them on the sides of the cake. Easy.
Except as soon as you touched the flowers they turned to dust.
Well the petals all broke off and then we were in bits too... Nikala was pulling random ludicrous ideas out of thin air that were totally unfeasible but sounding like much better options than the one we had, but none of them were what the bride and groom wanted. There was only one option, I had to painstakingly build each flower petal by petal on the cake... and you know what? it looked pretty damn good by the end... from a distance... BumArse.

Man down!

Well what a horrible thing to do...

I just had to fire one of my team, not a nice thing to do at any time, but this was the first firing I have had to do personally. Not that he didn't have it coming mind you, the guy was consistently late and calling in sick and just generally unreliable. In a support industry you just cant have that, our clients rely upon us being there and they never knew what was going on with their queries as we never knew when he would be in... but still not a nice thing to do to anyone.
Actually this is the first time I've had that conversation from either side so it was particularly hard as I had no inkling of what to say having never had it said to me, so I kept it short and sweet... well maybe sweet isn't the word... short and brutal would probably be more accurate!

Still, I imagine its like killing a man... it's never pleasant but it gets easier each time...

Oddly my working relationship with him started when I shot him in a high noon style shootout when we went paint balling with company... we were duelling to see who got to keep James as our name in the workplace... the loser had to adopt a girls name...

R.I.P. Becca


Here is a picture of Jim when we made him go bling (made him a target) for the paint balling.. oh happy days! (Is it wrong of me to reminisce about shooting an employee?)



Incidentally look out for my new blog: 1001 Excuses to skive off work - the Jim Blog

Dear diary...

Something thats always sat at the back of my mind was, well is: does anyone actually read this blog or is it purely me rambling off a bunch of random thoughts? I guess what I'm asking is whether this is being read by the masses (hi mum) or if this is just a glorified digital diary? Though I've got to say your feedback has been fantastic! Only the other day I was saying to myself, you know what James, that blog of yours is alright actually. This was acceptable as I was at home alone at the time and you are considered perfectly sane if you only talk to yourself in the confines of your own home. Of course things slip and occasionally I do find myself chuckling to a joke I just told myself at the bustop... eh whats that? No they dont need to know about that, shhh!
Anyway I invite you all to comment on any post you feel like... go on make me happy!

Irritatingly my personal email has been playing up recently. It's my useless ISP; I'm thinking of chucking them and going for another, of course this means changing my email address which is a pain.

I should really gt back to work... I am a manager after all and should lead by... wait I AM a manager after all and should darn well be able to do what I like! Do what I say not what I do damnit! Ahh the sweet sweet look of fear in their worked to hard eyes... nothing like the smell of despair.

Long time no see everybody!

Well yes I know... it's been a long time, and I've been lazy...

So now I'm thinking, do i just blurt out everything thats happened in the last year since last we spoke? Or should I tease it out, so it looks like I loads to say over the next several days...
Lets face it, if I dont tell all now it might be another year before you hear from me again, so here we go...

So, new job. yup I now manage a team of IT engineers for a company based in Putney in London... but thats work and thats quite enough of that.

You may remember way back in May last year, I was talking about my band? No? Well scroll down a bit you lazy b4st@rds! Anyway, I'm sad to say that the band is no more... well thats not entirely true the band is definately alive, just not in its original form. Yes thats right With Neil (founding bassist) working hard down under (I'm pretty certain he's only working hard on his tan) we have had to turn elsewhere. Where better than our good friend, local pub landlord, and sometime band photographer! Yep, Simon Spiken joined forces and once again we were all "workShy". Shortly after we were also joined by Charlie whom had on occasion joined us for a spot on the stage. We were now a four-piece. But enough about that! If you want to read more about the band go here: www.myspace.com/workshytheband and yes the writing style of the band blog may feel very familiar as it is indeed yours truely. oh one more thing about the band whilst I remember, we have another gig coming up and you are all more than welcome, details are on the aforementioned website as is a demo (gulp).
I have also been asked to sing in another band.. very tempting. I havent decided yet and of course you will be the first to know the outcome. If I do it certainly doesnt mean the end of workShy, just something else.

We have builders coming in next week to gut and redo our bathroom. I've got to admit I am pretty excited by this, it marks a turning point in the completion of our flat. That said I am also fairly apprehensive of this work as due to some spectacular planning (we have no kitchen currently) we will be with out water for a few days (remember... no kitchen, and I'm including the sink there!)... I did have one thought which I am undoubtably going to go to Hell for, let me fill you in...
Ok so you have the big picture I need to go back a few weeks/months (I cant remember the exact timeline), oh hang on... I think this deserves an entire posting of its own. so to cut a long story short, our neighbour fell and broke her hip a few weeks ago... leaving her flat empty... am I bad for hoping she will stay in hosptial another week or so? I mean theres free running water going towaste over there and we have been taking care of her cat for her....
Is it so wrong... it is isnt it? Damnit theres something wrong with me, can I justify it by the fact that the builders are going to need copious cups of tea and the water has to come from somewhere... I'll be quiet now...

Saving Private Reilly

Another morning, another old DVD to watch; it was war films today so I thought I'd start with Saving Private Ryan on of my favourites. I was about halfway though it, when Tom Hanks and his squad are halfway across France looking for Ryan when I realised how stiflingly hot it was in the flat and not to mention how hungry I was. Now by this time I was sick of toast. I had it for breakfast, I had it for lunch, for days and days. It was time for a shopping trip.

(Edit - 26/05/09 - it should be mentioned that I was having a break from emplyment at the time. Hence the toast diet. )

So thats how I found myself out in Beckenham paying the council tax and stuff, you know, the chores on the list I had woken up to find next to my face, thanks Nik. Well it looked nice out, it was sunny and hot, and I mean baking! The flat was always so sauna-like so I thought I'd get the list done and out of the way as well. The sky was blue with not a cloud in sight when I popped into Sainsbury's to get a few bits; however, when I came out the heavens had opened and it was absolutely bucketing down and I'm talking rivers in the road, thunder and lightening type of rain here. So there I was sheltering from the downpour with about half a dozen other slightly damp shoppers just outside of Sainsbury's, wishing I had in fact parked in the Sainsbury's car park instead of in the high street parking space (at the time it had been crucial to my carefully laid out shopping route so as to avoid unnecessary walking to and fro). I looked out towards the car, it wasn't far, just about fifty meters or so maybe I could run for it? More people joined us and it was clear that even a couple of seconds was enough to soak them not to mention I would probably fall over in my stupid flip-flops. No I would have to wait out the worst of it like everyone else, trouble was that I only had a few minutes before the parking meter ran out and I was supposed to be meeting a friend for lunch just down the road. The dilemma was actually a point of excitement for me, after all I had been in the house for months now with only a handful of ventures out into the wildlands of Beckenham. Well that did it, it was decided, I was going to make a dash for it!
Then all of a sudden, there was a flash and the loudest bang I have ever heard (it sounded like a bomb!), and the chimney on the building next to us exploded! I made it all of about 5 yards out of the shelter and turned back, bits of masonry falling around me, people screaming, bullets shrieking over head... Well ok so there may not have been anyone shooting but I had just been watching Saving Private Ryan again that morning remember and the similarity in my mind was uncanny!
Anyway, the lightening had struck not 20 feet away hitting the chimney (which really did explode) and not only that but the power of it also made the little children's pay for a ride on the plastic horse thing start by itself... spooky! So we are all standing there nervously laughing with bits of chimney falling around us, the plastic horse galloping on the spot with no rider and a river passing by in front of us. Surely only the most efficient of parking wardens would be out in that wouldn't they? I had no choice but to clutch my shopping and press my back against the cash machine so as to avoid the water blowing in and wait it out.
Eventually it subsided a little so I made that dash for the car. Phew no ticket, mind you they would have needed a boat by the looks of things. It was then that I remembered we still had a hole in our kitchen roof. Oh joy, the bucket easily fills about a quarter just when its a shower and... Oh no we cannot flood downstairs again! That does it, my friend will have to wait; if need be he can celebrate his news of a second job interview alone, I had a leak to stop. Driving back home it was like driving through a lake, there was water jetting out of manhole covers like fountains and people walking along the pavement where in some parts the water was half way up their shins.
I got home and dashed up stairs, my feet slipping and sliding in my now soaking flip-flops to find... Nothing out of the ordinary it was like it hadn't rained at all here.
Now its all over and you would hardly know it happened at all apart from the shops with sandbags in front of their doors.

It's Bad Luck you know -- Friday the 13th

Just realised it's Friday the 13th today!!!

Interestingly the French consider Friday 13th to be a lucky day. I wonder if there is some common point in our joint histories in which Friday the 13th favoured the French whilst we suffered in some way?

"Lion King was a rip-off"

Did Disney steal the story for its animated smash from a 1960s Japanese TV show?

Craig Andersen certainly thinks so, and his shot-by-shot analysis comparing Lion King to animated classic "Kimba The White Lion" makes it look like barefaced corporate plagiarism too. Huzzah!

http://www.kimbawlion.com/rant2.htm

PHEW! Been a long time!

Good lord! It's 2005! and almost halfway through it as well!!!

Well as you may have noticed it's been some time since my last post, things have been hectic and my usual place for putting some time aside to write a few words on here (the office) has been usurped with nasty work type things! Outrageous!

So whats been happening, well there has been some sad moments and some fun moments and some sad moments that were fun and some fun moments that were actually quite sad. I've met some funny people that I thought were quite sad and some sad people that were really quite funny. I've met some people that I knew and some people that I didn't know. I've met some people that I thought I knew but didnt and some people that I thought I didn't know but embarressingly apparently I did and I've met some people that I thought I didn't know but then realised I did but they didn't know me...

Recently (ish), in a Blues Brothers type of way, we got the band back together! Now this is the first band I ever played in and it consists in it's current form of Neil Weavers on bass guitar, Clayton McKensie on drums and myself on guitar and lead vocals. This time round we are having a great time and it's really coming together, with two songs almost completed we are looking forward to gigs in smokey back rooms on the Camden Town pub circuit! We are writing all our own material which is both exciting and frustrating and before you ask, no I am not going to give you a sneak preview until I have something concrete!

Also the we have been designing t-shirts for what we hope will be our own label. They are currently only available as transfers but there are plans to get them screen-printed if we receive enough interest. I will update later with details on where you can see the designs when they are available! I'm already wearing several of them though obviously not all at once!

Coming of Age....

Well how did that happen?

I'm sat here on the final day Ill ever be twenty something wondering what the hell just happened to the last decade; trying to decide whether I should just push back that list of things I was supposed to have done by now or write them off completely as a lost cause. Of course there are some things that are just unobcheivable now, like having a salary that equaled a certain amount by the time I'm 30 for instance, unless by some miracle I'm given an enormous pay rise over the weekend!

What's strange is that I really don't feel like an adult, most of my friends all seem much more "adult" than I and of course like any good middle class public schoolboy I like to fit in with crowd so I'm nodding my head and wracking my brain for the last time I watched the news. I can't help feeling like I'm still only a teenager, I mean surely it was only the other day that I was 17 and foolishly acting the rebel? Wasn't it? 13 years ago you say? Well nothing has changed, well except for the need to earn cash to pay the bills, and of course money to go on holiday, oh and don't forget that new coffee machine you wanted or that 32" television... Oh and about the most rebelious I get these days is...gasp... not wearing a suit to work! No surely not! the horror! I know, your shocked arnt you? Your finding it hard to go on with such depraivety....Ahem....Not really sure where I'm going with that line of thought, probably best I cut it off there!
Still you've got to ask yourself... A good whisky matures in an oak casket.... Maybe it's the same for us except we don't get in a casket until the very end.

Oh my god what have I written.... You see I'm only 29 and 364 days old and already I'm rambling, but then that's what the blog's called after all!

Living in France

For those of you who like the whole "A year in Provence" books and re-location abroad shows on the t.v, have a look at this lady's blogg; she has been living in France for the last 15 years and it takes a look at her daily life.

http://www.petiteanglaise.com/

Bad bad joke

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other bloke whips out his phone and calls the emergency services."My friend is dead what can I do?," he gasps. "Calm down, I can help," the operator says. "First, let's make sure he's dead.".........Silence...... then a shot. "Okay, now what?"