One of the things that makes work even more miserable is that feeling of hopelessness and disempowerment. Turning up every day, working hard, and finding things haven’t changed at all or, even more depressing, got worse. Knowing that the problems in your job, and the problems underlying those problems, cannot be solved by you. All you can do is patch things up when they break.
That feeling saps every vestage of life from your soul if it hangs around too long. It’s been shown that the lower down the power tree you are at work, the more unhealthy and miserable you become. Any time you hear some high-powered business man talking about the “stress of responsibility”…just slap him.

In fact, life in general is exactly the same. When you start to notice that your entire life is not in your own hands. Getting in more debt. Getting stung by banks, estate agents, insurance companies and lawyers. Watching the world decay into war, fascism and ignorance and knowing that whatever you do can’t change that.
But today I found a solution. Really. Well, a solution for the work one anyway. But who knows ? Maybe it can apply to other aspects of life too.
It’s so simple: just make sure that at the end of the day you achieve something. Preferably something that stretches you a bit. At 5pm, after a typically dismal day, I decided to knock an item off of my burgeoning TODO list. It was low priority but needed a lot of investigation to solve it. But afterwards it shone an entirely different light on the day. A feeling of triumph, no matter how small, really puts a crack in that relentless rolling wheel of misery.
Maybe the answer to feeling better about your life and the world is just to ensure you have the odd victory…no matter how small. These things add up.
OTOH maybe I’m just talking a lot of naive, whimsical crap.

The misery of sofa-confinement has now ended. The end began on Thursday when Tony visited me. He lives in France and, for some bizarre reason, the French think Armistice Day is something to celebrate and ,consequently, take the day off work. Cheese eaters! It was a good to chat and talk bollocks with an old friend, which is what we did. Ian and Sue also turned up and it made me feel a lot better about the world; Sue and Michele both brought wine into the house, but I’m not suggesting this is related to my good mood at the time. OK ?
Friday, my first “long” walk for a fortnight. Down the road to the Walpole for lunch. How I’d missed that Thai food (and the company of my workmates of course 🙂
Things are healing quite well, but walking is still a problem. The solution seems to be to put a hand in the left pocket (anyone’s hand will do) and pull the jeans out to the front. Employing this method allowed me to cover quite a lot of ground on Friday.
In the evening the Walpole was full of people I really like. Not only the regulars, but loads of other top people, including those celebrating Claire’s time at Goldsmiths, as she is about to abandon ship. Lots of people will miss you Claire. Later in the evening, Michele, Ian, Mod, Rach and Sid had arranged to go down to Kaya House. It was superb as usual. However, due to feeling tired and emtional, I had to leave early. Michele helped me hobble home (it still hurts!)… As soon as we got there I hit the bed, but I’m told that Tony and his mate turned up afterwards. Sorry I missed you guys.
Saturday. Quincy has been cancelled on Saturdays by ITV2, without any consultation with loyal fans, but luckily another quality friend had planned to visit us. Ben arrived early afternoon with a wicked Guiness t-shirt, a bottle of chateauneuf-du-pape and a book. Too kind Ben. What could I offer back ? Tea and a crap sleepingbag….
But we went out to the Walpole. My nob was giving me jip but the “hand in pocket” technique worked well. After a few pints of the excellent Guinness we went home…via the Marquis and the Rosy 🙂
This afternoon we had some quality food and company round my Mum and Dad’s. BTW, their car turns out to have an engine that is so fucked that it would cost more to fix it than they paid for the whole thing!
Luckily, they bought it off the world’s nicest people, who not only agreed to give the money back, but also asked them to keep the car! That’s not right! I might start getting my faith in humanity back!
Back to work tomorrow I think. That clearly sucks, but at least our home is within hobbling distance from the office, so if it all gets a but heavy I can go home. And the weekend was really quite good I think.
Other things too…but another time.

Thanks to GAIM, I have just had a long chat with my mate Alex(q.v.), whom I haven’t spoken to for ages. Buddy Pounce is SAFE :).
That, combined with a judicious quantity of Bushmills has lifted my grey mood.
Nice one Alex!

This quote from BBC News says it all:
“The ill-fated attempt to set up a UK ‘e-university’ was described by the higher education minister as ‘rubbish'”

The only other question is whether The Day Today team will sue for copyright infringement.

A piece of news that bypassed me over the weekend was that Fred Dibnah has died. Only a week after John Peel left us deprived. Both items affected me more that you (and I) would think. The world is poorer for their passing.
On the other hand it does mean there has been, and will be, quite a lot of good telly for a while. John Peel tributes all over the shop and UK TV History showed Dibnah’s 1978 steeplejack documentary again today. They’ll live on.
I would have said that the good die young…but neither of them was spring chickens. Whatever the fuck a spring chicken is…

A serious allegation, that you can rest assured the U.S. media won’t pick up on, is from BlackBoxVoting, that Election Fraud took place in the last U.S. election. That’s a bit far fetched isn’t it ? In the land of the free ? You’re right…of course the government would never do something like that. They’re trustworthy and only have their citizens welfare at heart. In fact, accusing the current government of fraud, when they are such good pals with Our God Almighty is effectively blasphemy and so, in fairness, anyone that suggests such a thing should be BURNT.

This is my third attempt at blogging since the last entry. The other two attempts were prevented by a combination of ennui and motivational void.
Partly it’s because I can’t walk about without some sort of pain…and fear that I’m making things worse. Partly it’s because, being away from work, I realise how much I don’t want to do computer support any more…in any shape or form. Partly it’s because I can’t do anything else. Partly it’s because I want to do something creative, but I don’t seem to have any creative skills whatsoever. Partly it’s because…well…everything…

However, I put most of the blame on daytime TV. I hate it. Yet, for some inexplicable reason I compell myself to watch it. I don’t know why. It’s like Videodrome, it has a physiological effect on the viewer, only in the case of ITV2, it doesn’t create “The New Flesh”, it just converts grey matter into a, presumably tasteless, cheese. Hmm, maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe it tastes like some really good brie… I just suspect it tastes like overprocessed American cheese. BTW – did you know that Americans buy cheddar that is red…and tasteless ? And they think that’s proper cheddar. Weird eh ?

It has been so boring that:

• I registered virtualboozer.com and setup a chat room there…even though no-one knows about it. Login and have a go if you get really bloody bored.
• I’ve been watching Emmerdale. Nuff said
• The prospect of listening to The Archers this morning filled me with excitement
• Yesterday, not only did we watch Silent Running for the umpteenth time, but I also watched Jason and the Argonauts…again
• I’ve been watching Coronation Street..and the repeats…and the omnibus…
• Other things too tragic to mention

That’s enough creativity for now (I told you it was desperate). Bye.

OK, so either 50% of America is composed of deluded morons, or the vote was rigged. Either way, it looks like Bush is going to win. The rest of the world’s population looks on aghast. Not knowing whether to be shocked, astonished or just depressed. The worst thing is that the Bush supporters don’t feel ashamed that they are the laughing stock of the rest of the world…in fact that just proves to them that they are better than the rest of the world.
Anyway – back to my penis.
This morning I had a visit from Zap, whom I haven’t seen for several weeks. While he was here we were all disturbed to hear a violent banging on the window. My boss, Geoff, and my colleague, Shirley had arrived to deliver some good vibes from my work mates. Some beautiful flowers, a cheese selection, a bottle of chilean red, a bottle of Bushmills (10 year old single malt Irish – my favourite whisky) and a card signed by everyone in CS. I nearly cried. In the past I have received leaving cards and been utterly chuffed by every one of them. But this is the first “congratulations on your circumcision” cards. I’ll trasure it! Thanks everyone! I may well enter it for the Guinness book of records “card with the most number of references to the recipients penis” entry.
Went to the doc this afternoon in my dad’s new car. After a long wait, I went in, the doc checked it out, gave me another 10 days off work and basically told me the bleeding, scary looking stuff and pain was totally normal. Thanks NHS.
So now I’m totally happy. I know my nob’s not going to fall off (for a while), I know that my work mates are getting a healthy amount of amusement out of my condition, which is the way it should be. And I’ve got cheese and Bushmills for company 🙂

Squemish people look away now.
Here is a picture of a seriously scary, deformed nob:
After looking at that I don’t feel so bad about my own affliction. Things are much the same, nobwise, at the moment. I’m planning to go and see the quack tomorrow. I’ve been paying my stamps for 33 years and getting my moneys worth in this way makes me feel a lot better about it.
Michele and I have been doing a lot of worrying about the U.S. election, my feelings on the relevence of the whole thing notwithstanding… The biggest problem I have is not worrying about how bad the world will be with that tosser running things for another 4 years, but worrying about how so many people can vote for him. I’m sorry people, but I don’t believe in mass stupidity, but I do in mass gullability. The poor people who vote for him are clearly so detached from the real world that they have no other choice. Picture these poor peasants:

• They probably haven’t walked for more than 20 yards in one stretch in the open air for the majority of their lives
• They don’t understand why you would ever need a pavement.
• They think the TV news is objective and can’t imagine any reason why it wouldn’t be…unless it was a foreign news source.
• They don’t realise that Fox News is run by a foreigner: whereabouts in the world is Murdoch a citizen these days
• They genuinely think that Al Quaeda have a plan to cause widespread carnage in ButtFuck, TX or whatever rinky dink suburban hell-hole they live in.
• They think they’re free!

Pity them…
I know the polls are really undecided at the moment, but I also know that paying any attention to polls within the last few months of an election campaign is generally completely pointless. Apart from the statistical evidence backing that assertion up, there are other, potentionally more convincing, reasons. I mean…who is conducting these polls ? I don’t mean the companies, I mean really. The people on the front line… Generally it’s going to be minimum-wage, underpaid slaves. Put under pressure by the managers to deliver the goods. The managers may well have their own “partisan” agendas too. Doesn’t really make for an accurate unbiased system does it ? Ignore the poles.
AFAICT, in terms of number votes, Kerry has won it. There can be no other reason for the massive turn-out. All of the apathetic, jaded, cynical, bastards (like I would have been), who didn’t turn out last time, realise that this whole NeoNazi^H^H^H^HCon thing needs to be stopped.
However, who will win no longer depends on the number of votes as we have rampant corruption to take into consideration:

• The dodgy*10^100 voting machines
• The missing ballot papers
• The blatant cheating
• The nepotism (cough..Jed…John Ellis…choke)

The next 24 hours will be very interesting.

Changing the subject sightly; My mum and dad have bought a new car from the insurance dough. They only got 500 quid but luck threw them an 8 year old Rover 100 sold by the neighbours of my favourite aunt and uncle. This one has an immobiliser but I’d still like to put a wireless camera in there so we can catch any little bastard who tries to nick it. That way I may be able to find him and administer a bit of aversion therapy…with a big stick with all nails sticking out.
As for the insurance company…if I ever get diagnosed with a fatal disease, watch your backs. I’m taking people with me. It’ll either be Bankers, Insurance brokers, Estate Agents or Lawyers. I might even set up an Earls Court conference for “The financial and legal implications of property purchases and how can you insure yourself against trouble”. One small red-mercury bomb and we purify the whole of the UK…

Squeamish folk look away now.
In the last couple of days I have become concerned that my op may have ended up going pear-shaped. Call me over-cautious if you wish, but this is my nob. I’m not taking any chances. Today, the current poor state of the NHS was emphasised to us on several occasions.
I didn’t want to call NHS direct, because they are powerless. They daren’t give a catagorical answer over the phone, because if they were wrong they could get sued. So all they ever do is refer you to A&E. A&E means a minimum of 2 hours in the company of the local sick, mad, and violent, until you get seen by an overworked, uninterested, tired doctor who really couldn’t give a monkey’s toss, and would prefer that you visited your GP..even if it was your GP that referred you to the hospital in the first place. Our wonderful new, semi-privatised, NHS is not coherent because every surgery, hospital and consultant is now concerned about individual spending. As a result, patients act as human tennis balls between uninterested, overworked GPs and uninterested, overworked hospitals. You can only hope that at some point you accidentally meet a doctor with some vestage of professional integrity who will actually endevour to make you better.
So, today, I wanted to make sure I didn’t have an infection. The only way to ensure this would be to have someone, ie a human, look at it. I can’t walk, for reasons that should be obvious to every uncircumcised male reader. And I had no intention of hobbling down to A&E via several busses, or paying for a cab, which would involve just as much walking.
Michele phoned the weekend GP service (SELDOC) who, of course, told her to take me to Lewisham hospital. No! I’d rather wait until my cock fell off and then sue them! She rang back and got someone else who, perhaps because he was male, took it more seriously. He organised a doctor to phone me back within an hour. A doctor did ring me back. His predictable suggestion was for me to drive to Lewisham hospital. In fairness he did understand that, not having a car, or any friends with a car, this was a problem. I had to ask 3 times for a home visit before his supervisor allowed it. He clearly appreciated my predicament, but was powerless until blessed by his supervisor. So we got the promise of a home visit within 2 hours. 3 hours later (not bad for the NHS on a Saturday night) a really nice quack turned up, inspected me and prescribed me a course of antibiotics. He also reassured me that it was probably nothing to worry about. Again, that is fine, but this is my nob. I need to be sure.
All the time he was here, Humph was quiet, well-behaved and even reverent! All day long, he was noisy and demanding but in front of the quack…not a peep. It’s like he (she) could tell there was something important going on. Good bird.

As you probably know by now, my hero, Charlie Brooker, got in all kinds of ultra-right trouble with his recent Guardian article. If you want to read it (now the Grauniad have bravely removed it from their site), you can see it here.

Yesterday I had my long awaited operation. Now I’m sitting on the sofa, typing this blog with Humph sitting on top of my iBook screen, preening. Pain-wise I’m fine (co-codamol/ibuprofen). But every time I’m forced to observe the “operation zone” I get scared. It’s scary. It scares me! If it gets more scary I’m off to the quack. However, as I type, co-codamol, ibuprofen and red wine are doing their thing. Please don’t get concerned about that combination of drugs…because I know a lot about them…more than you think I know…and probably more than you know. But I’m feeling fine and my swelling is very low at the moment. So shut-up.
If my experience of Lewisham hospital is typical then I would recommend it to anyone. Especially to those poor sods in Greenwich that have to deal with the QE. The nurses in the day surgery were lovely, attentive, and genuinely appeared to care…just like the fictional nurses we read about in childhood books. One of the nurses complained about the lack of Marmite availability in the “pantry”. As soon as I get fit again I will be buying them a jar.
Lots of nice text messages and e-mails have made me feel very happy.

A couple of work colleagues ended up dealing with a very shitty hardware situation that they really shouldn’t have to deal with on their own. As a last resort…and it really was a last resort…they called me about it and apologised a million times. No need. They shouldn’t have been put in that position in the first place and they dealt with it perfectly. As soon as I logged into the mail system, after it came back up, I intended to write them a thank-you note. However, before I got a chance, one of them, Sue, turned up at the door with a bunch of flowers! So nice of her. All we could offer her was a cup of tea…when, in fact, it’s her and her work mate that deserve the thanks.

Humph has now become scared that Michele has left the room…but he’s still on the laptop – looking at me. Good bird.
I’m feeling a lot better, but the “operation zone” is still in a scary state. I know that one day it will be normal again…but it’s hard to bear that in mind at the moment. This CD is really rather cool BTW!
There were loads of other things I wanted to get off my chest, but at the moment, with Humph sleeping on the laptop as I write, I feel quite content and mellow. More when the anger rises :)!
Love to you,
Martin