Quote of the day comes from Charlie Brooker in this week’s Guardian:
“Morning has broken ? Good I hate morning. You wake, soaked in your own filth, your face raw from last night’s tears, shards of shattered shot-glass peppering the bedspread, and you ask yourself what difference it would make if instead of going to work you spent the day banging your head against the kitchen table and howling till your skull bursts open and the pain flops out. Or is that just me ?”

Well, there are all kinds of things that I could write about – that we’ve been married six years, that we’ve hit our overdraft limit on July 5th, that Michele hit 32, that Margot (landlady of the Rosey) has installed her parrot, Clive, in the pub, that George Bush still doesn’t get it, that we spent much of the weeky tidying for what turned out to be a ten minute visit from the landlady…..

but you know I can’t be bothered…instead I’m just going to hide away in the flat, shout at the telly, write pointless programs, drink red wine and generally appreciate Michele and Humphrey (my beattiful birds 🙂

Connex have lost their franchise! Yahoo!
I know it probably won’t make any difference to the traveling public; the next bunch of incompetent, money grabbing, hopeless, pin-striped wankers won’t be any better. But how nice to know that the directors and the shareholders will be really unhappy. With any luck many of them will end up without a job and living in penury. Hoorah!

Why not send your cheery comments to connex – let then know how happy you are that they’ve gone.

One of the problems with e-mail, blogs and even snail mail is that the longer you leave a response, the more daunting the prospect becomes….so you end up not doing anything ? So what does kick one into action exactly ? Well sadly in this case it’s not because I have something fascinating or incisive to say, but just because I know it will get even worse if I don’t write something.

Anyway, yesterday we were due to be going to a wedding..sort of thing…they’re already married but they got married in India so this was for all of the people who missed it. The celebration is in a place called “Chesham, Bucks”. The word Bucks scares me as it seems like a continent away, but once I noticed it was on the Tube map it didn’t seem so far.

Lesson 1: Just because it’s on the tube map doesn’t mean it isn’t a fucking long way away

We got the maps, directions, train-times and everything ready to go but, fortunately, I developed a major gut-rot and was in no fit state to go on saturday morning. Why would I say “fortunately” ? Surely I’m not that opposed to long journeys ? Read on…
Michele sent an apologetic e-mail to Simon and Laekha explaining the situation….

Later that day they called us to see how I was. “Hows the party going ?” Michele asked. “err…you know it’s tomorrow don’t you” Laekha responded.

Today we did go to Chesham, and it took 3 hours. If I hadn’t had the belly-ache yesterday, we would have done the same tedious journey only to discover bugger all…and then we’d have to do it again the next day. Michele would have, quite justifiably, castrated me under these circumstances because it was I that firmly corrected her when she suggested that the party was sunday not saturday. I truly am a total twat.

Lesson 2: Martin is frequently as wrong as King Wrong

Anyway…Chesham is in Zone D. Yes D. There is a D. It goes 1,2,3,4,5,6,A,B,C,D. The girl at lewisham station (new ticket office – still only one bastard window open) also didn’t know about it either. It turns out that you can’t buy a Zone D Travelcard from a NR(BR) station, only from an Underground station. “But how do I get there ?” I asked. “Well, buy a 6-zone card from here and LT will upgrade it for you [ for the cost of the difference ]” the ticket office helpfully advised.

Lesson 3: Nothing told to you by a connex employee can be considered to be a fact, no matter how confidently they tell you

We got to Charing Cross and I optimistically handed over our 6-zone cards and asked for an upgrade.
“I can’t do that sir, these aren’t LT cards, they’re from BR” the ticket office guy told me. I protested that it even had an LT logo on it but he wouldn’t shift . At that point I came close to breaking down, despairing at how shit and unfair our wonderful 21st century integrated transport system was…”Oh god…” I shouted”…”why…why is it so difficult ? All I wanted was to get from Lewisham to Chesham and I can’t fucking do it ? Jesus why…”
“OK OK I’ll do it for you” the guy interrupted and went ahead and did it…Nice of him, and I should have been grateful I suppose but all I could manage in the way of thanks was “but I really shouldn’t have to be brought this close to tears to get this sorted…”. The guy agreed. Props to the man with common sense..

The icing on the cake was to pick up a copy of a glossy rag called “Upfront: The connex lifestyle magazine” from the train. Lucky because I really need some advice on my lifestyle from connex. It is beyond parody.

Lesson 4: No matter how much of bunch of cunts you think connex are, they are always capable of surprising you by being even worse

So we went there, drank, ate and chatted and then came back. Despite the efforts of Connex and LT we enjoyed ourselves…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Back home now, Humphrey is eeking, I’m still mulling over Orwell’s MI5 list and tomorrow is monday.

The sun is setting. Michele is playing with Humphrey, who has been eating sunflower seeds out of our hands for a couple of days now. This probably doesn’t sound like much but it’s actually a major breakthrough. He wouldn’t let us get near his cage when we first got him, and now we can stick our fingers through the cage and he’ll eat nuts from them. Such a pretty little bird.

During the last week I’ve spent the majority of my time on the lower half of the emotional cycle. Right near the dingy, oily, gear mechanism. This is probably related to thinking too hard about life directions, my overdraft and that sort of thing. But whatever caused it, I’ve been thinking. Not sure what about. The dreams don’t make it any clearer either; last night was another one about being shot, only my wound wasn’t serious…but someone close to me (I think it was Frances, my sister) had a very serious bullet hole and I didn’t manage to get her to hospital or anything. She ended up going on her own, which made me feel very sad. Dream experts can fuck right off with their Freudian bullshit.

[ michele taps me on the should to show me Humphrey keenly picking a seed off her finger ]

This afternoon was booked off work so that I could go down to Brick Lane and help fix a Linux box at easynet’s base. They had such bullshit security. We both needed to bring photo ID (Pete brought his passport) in return for which we were given some dodgy RFID cards with code numbers printed on them. These would allow us to pass beyond the glass wall that separated us from the lifts. We had to move over to a couple of glass cylinders, move the card near the keypad so that the green light came on, and then had to type the number displayed on the card into the keypad. The glass cylinder responded by sliding one side across inviting one of us to step in. Once inside the cylinder, the door closed leaving you trapped in a glass tube. For some reason the name “Augustus Gloop” came to mind but there was no chocolate anywhere near as far as I could tell. After wating a few seconds (while the bat-laser-scan-o-tron scanned us for weapons, drugs, and copies of NMAP I expect) the other side of the cylinder openned allowing the prisoner out on to the SECURE side of the glass wall. All very impressive as long as you didn’t notice the very ordinary looking door to the left of the glass podules that the security guards used when they wanted to get through the glass wall.
The lift was SECURE too. You had to do the card/PIN routine in there before you could select a floor. Of course a cynical person would ask what the point of the code number was if it’s printed on the fucking card, but Pete and I were too impressed to question it….although Pete did suggest that the lift PIN pad was there just to give the security guards a laugh as they watched us obediently go through the ritual.
As Dave H says, it impresses the easily impressed.

Well, we fixed the server, installed some Anti-Virus software and fucked off to the nearby pub. A good afternoon’s work. Being Brick Lane meant I also managed to buy a couple of very agreeable samosas on the way down to Shoreditch station too. Lovely.

Michele managed to pluck up enough courage to tell me about an upcoming event concerning our accomodation. She didn’t want to tell me about it because any news related to Landlords and Estate agents makes the veins on my head start throbbing with anger. Room 101 is waiting for me and it contains a massive van der graff generator (what is the name of the phobia of static electricity ?), two estate agents, a clothes shop and an imminent visit from room 101’s landlord.
Michele was told that our landlady was coming over from Germany in July to look into the possibility of having a loft conversion. “Oh no, are we going to have to move out ?” Michele asked the Estate Agent slug.
“Oh no – nothing like that” the liar replied.
Oh well that’s alright then. Obviously what it must be is that our landlady is concerned we don’t have enough space and is going to give us a few extra rooms for no extra rent. And while the work is going on she’ll probably put us up in a 5-star hotel so it doesn’t interfere with our lifestyles too much.

So what do we do ? Buy a place in London ? Hmm well I could buy a shoebox in peckham on my wages…but then I could drive nails into my eyes instead and it wouldn’t cost a penny.
We could rent another place….but I’d rather eat my own shit.
So that only leaves buying a place in Philadelphia…but that’s scary and involves me leaving my job and my “hood”. Oh dear.

Oh well. The sun’s out and the outrageous humidity is now fading leaving beautiful weather. Humphrey has been getting more friendly and even came out of his cage for a wander….and then let himself back in using the ladder we bought him. Red wine in the sunset – it’s not all bad is it ?

What do you want out of life ?
The last few days have been examples of my ideal life. More of this please.
On tuesday was Adrian and Lesley’s wedding. Great ceremony (no religion),
lots of old friends: Toby, Petra, Greg and Margaret, Simon, Adrian (of course), Howard and lots of new friends: Laekha, Alex, Anna, Rosy. Altogether a happy day. Weddings aren’t supposed to be like that…there wasn’t even a fight.
Greg’s speech was a masterpiece and, despite going on for 2 or 3 hours at least, caused me to laugh louder and longer than is polite.
The sun has been out and shining for the last two days and bought that gorgeous translucent blue sky that brings the true beauty of nature out and into your face. We have just had a few lovely hours out in it, in the Rosemary Branch garden. Lovely.

While I’ve been at work over ther last two days, Michele has been at home with Humphrey and he has at last come out of his shell. Not only is he playing with his toys and generally being cute – but today he even came out of his cage and wandered about for a bit! Such a lovely bird.

You can’t imagine the effect clothes-shopping has on me. I would genuinely rather wear a “Millwall are Wankers” T-shirt in a Bermonsey pub when they’re playing at home than go shopping to buy a pair of trousers. It’s beyond dislike, there is a physical reaction much like phobias that people have – I get a tightening around the chest, my heart races and I can’t think straight.
So I don’t. Consequently, when it’s time to go to a job interview, wedding, funeral or anywhere else where different rules apply, I’m fucked. Yesterday Michele made me try on my suit. Of course the trousers don’t fit very well. They do up though.”But they don’t look right on the bum”, Michele told me. Well to me, trousers just don’t look right. If it isn’t jeans and a t-shirt it looks wrong. But Michele wasn’t having any of it, and offered to go to Lewisham to buy me some trousers – knowing the disasterous effect that me going out to buy them would have on us both. Pointless, I thought, because even if you can find a pair that fit my waist, the legs will be too long. But off she went.
Bugger me, she came back with two pairs of perfectly fitting black trousers. We plumped for the Primark ones (12 quid!) because despite having 80s-style pleats and turn-ups they fitted better. So today, the day of Adrian’s wedding, I can go along without causing too much embarrasment to the assembly.

Anyway – now it’s zero hour, the horrors of straight-clothes are all flooding back. I must have spent 10 minutes irning one side one bloody side of my (cotton) shirt. Jesus Christ, do all these people you see in suits up town have to do that shit every day ? Why ? What is the point ? If you wore black cotton t-shirts, you would just have to wash them, hang them up to dry and the wrinkles just fall out… You mugs!
And What are ties for ? The only purpose I can see is to conceal the shirt buttons. Perhaps in days long passed shirt buttons were considered rude or offensive in some way ? Perhaps they suggested that underneath the shirt was….NUDITY. Yuck! Cover those filthy tools of satan lest our minds may wander into the realms of filth at their very sight.
I can’t wait to get back into my normal clothes – and I haven’t even changed yet…

“The danger in reaching thirty isn’t in becoming more right-wing, but in becoming sensible…The menace of sensible is that it’s incompatible with passion. I bet Che Guevara never had all his Christmas cards sent out by the middle of November”

An emotional day.
This morning Humphrey was in such a good mood that we decided to try and get him out of the cage again. We opened the door and this time, after about 10 minutes he flew out! He bumbled about in the air for what seemed like an hour and then landed on the curtain rail looking confused and scared.
It was then that we realised we both had to go to work and so he should really be back in the safety of his cage….but how ?
After some discussion I got the step-ladder out and climbed up to get him. We had to move the ladder a few times before I could get close, but when I eventually plucked up enough courage to grab him he was terrified and made a squarking noise I’d never heared before. I got him back in the cage but was very upset as it seemed like he might have been hurt and there were downy feathers all over the gaff, including in my shirt, hair and beard. So, like it says in all the good parrot books, I apologised repeatedly to him in a very soft voice 🙂
Anyway, he’s happy as larry now, preening, eating and eeking so he looks fine.

Then this afternoon I went to the funeral of Betty Shreeve. She was one of my dad’s best and oldest friends and such a cool woman. I’ve known her since birth. It was a very emotional funeral. Being a Humanist funeral it was very dignified too and thus none of that religious shit; it was about her and not some bizarre medieval deity. They played “Whiter shade of pale” and “memories”. That was when the sniffles all started. We were all blubbing like fools. My poor dad especially.
Ah well – at least we all had th eopportunity to remember what a wonderful woman she was.

A good friend of mine that I’ve known since school is getting married. We left it right to the last minute to confirm we were planning to go and then realised that we’d lost the invitation…so I left a really wanky message on Adrian’s (the groom-to-be) voice mail and he sent me a lovely e-mail saying that was fine. He also listed a few people who were also coming. Each one of them was listed together with their S/O. Before I knew what I was doing I’d replied saying:
“Damn we’re all couples. This is what the 30s is like I suppose. Kids next. Then divorce. Then lots of self-indulgent destructive alcoholism until the funerals all start.”
too late – I sent it…sorry Adrian – I didn’t mean to piss quite so heavily and widely over the kindling.

Nice weekend tho’. On saturday I met up with Alex for a “Freedom for Palestine” rally. We stood it out for an hour or so, which is pretty good I think, and then went on a magical mystery tour that involved Maplin, the Pub and the Science Museum. Superb.

Humphrey the parrot is still very nervous.