Monday 31 October 2011

Contagious

Went to the movies with a friend last night and saw the film 'Contagion', which we enjoyed although the viewing conditions were not ideal. It is a film best watched in an empty theatre, possibly at a morning show, on your own. Not in a crowded movie-house, beset on all sides by coughing mouth-breathers.

I still felt a little twitchy this morning during my appointment at the LegalWise office (the Laptop Saga continues). I was not comforted by the following large poster which occupied an entire wall of the little cubicle. I had plenty of time to study it while the advisor hunted for my file, and can only conclude that life-threatening and wildly infectious disease is the norm amongst LegalWise clients. While I am obviously thrilled at the news that TB can be cured, I did try not to come into contact with any surfaces in the office, or breathe too often.

Sunday 30 October 2011

Truly, I am accursed.

In the police station this morning YET AGAIN, not in relation to the Great Laptop Drama this time, but thanks to a bizarre accident yesterday afternoon. I had intended to go out, but on reaching the communal parking lot it was clear that I was going nowhere. My car (along with my neighbour's car) was trapped in its parking bay by a mystery vehicle which had been parked behind me, a little uphill but leaving no room for maneouvre.

I looked about ineffectually for the owner, at which point my next-door neighbour walked by and informed me the car had already been there for an hour or two. I then called the guardhouse to request a wheel-clamp (warning notices abound on the consequences of illegal parking around here).

The guard promptly arrived, and he seemed to be well acquainted with the owner of the offending Toyota, for he ducked into a nearby house and emerged carrying a car key. As he started up the car, I went into the house to give the owner (a woman) a piece of my mind about her inconsiderate parking habits.  Meanwhile, by the grinding and stalling noises in the background, it sounded as though the security guard was having trouble with the concept of gears.

I dashed over to my neighbour's place to let him know that the culprit had been discovered, and it was from this vantage point that we watched as the security guard rolled the Toyota straight down the hill and smack into the back of my car.

Well, hell hath no fury like someone whose precious jam jar has been bashed thanks to a lazy bitch who can't be bothered walk the extra steps from her actual parking space to her front door, or move her own car a few meters when required. Furthermore, she tried to insist that as hers was a company car, I should not try to involve her insurers as this would reflect badly on her. I should recover the money from the security guard instead. Yeah, right.

I have discovered this article revealing the identity of the only person in world history unluckier than me:
Unluckier than me. Just.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi:
 In 1945 he was on a business trip to Hiroshima when an American atomic bomb detonated above the city, killing 80,000 people in an instant (and many more from the effects of radiation later). He was knocked to the ground and suffered serious burns, and spent a terrible night in an air raid shelter among thousands of his screaming, dying, mutilated compatriots. 

In the morning he negotiated his way through the ruined streets and caught a train back to his home — the city of Nagasaki. Heavily bandaged, he reported to work a day later, and was just relaying the terrible events of Hiroshima to colleagues when he witnessed once more the terrible flash of an exploding atomic bomb. Again, he survived, but being present in the only two cities ever to be attacked with atomic weapons must make Tsutomu Yamaguchi the unluckiest survivor of all.

Saturday 29 October 2011

Grosseries

Denied! And it looked so appealing.
My local supermarket has truly embraced the spirit of Halloween, not shying away from the darker undertones of corruption and decay - witness the attached picture.

Speaking of decay, it's all over between me and bananas. Every week I optimistically buy a bunch, determined to inject some fruity natural goodness into my diet.

Usually I forget I've got them on day one. On day two, I remember them but by that time ominous brown speckles have already appeared. I diligently eat one anyway. On day three, the pestilent speckles have taken over and the bananas are rank, overripe, decomposing brown lepers. At the end of the week I consign the remaining eleven bananas to the dustbin. I put it down to insufficient irradiation and genetic tampering.

I did notice one good sign as I toured the supermarket: my compulsion to buy lottery tickets has disappeared, which is a sign that life at the office has definitely improved.

Thursday 27 October 2011

Bath companion

Tonight's dilemma: should I...
1.) Let the nice, hot, relaxing bathwater out and run a second bath, potentially exhausting the meagre supply of hot water...

Or

2.) Bathe in the dissolving remains of a great big moth that had seized the opportunity to plunge into the bath while my back was turned.

Bathed in the moth soup. Why are they so water-soluble?

Wednesday 26 October 2011

Sweet music of nature


Woken this morning at 5.45am by the sounds of buffalo mating in a watering hole. 

My neighbours bathroom window faces across from mine, and I really must let them know that a hand-held shower device can easily be obtained for their bath, as opposed to standing up in the tub and emptying buckets of water over themselves as they are apparently doing at the moment.

The Big Cheese

 My, what a busy day. Tried to buy a plane ticket to London, then realised passport would expire imminently making travel impossible.

Downloaded complex and intimidating forms. Had sinister, blotchy passport photo taken which will haunt me for the next TEN YEARS.

Booked a courier to collect the forms the next day, then rushed home to get tarted up to attend the John Cleese Alimony Tour, which he has allegedly undertaken in order to pay his ex-wife the 20 squillion quid he owes her.

JC does indeed seem to be harbouring a fair amount of bitterness towards the ex. He's 71 now and perhaps a shade on the arthritic and croaky side, but the audience hung on his every word and lapped up the classic Python and Fawlty Towers clips he showed. His slide-show could have benefited from the formidable skillz of the PowerPoint maestro, however. A picture of his father was labeled 'Reginald Cheese', and it didnt seem to be on purpose.

After obligingly answering predictably lame questions put to him by random fuckwits in the audience, he cleared off. A fabulous evening, but my enjoyment of the latter half was marred by my high-heeled shoes that were bloody well KILLING ME.

Monday 24 October 2011

the party's over

Alas, the MAM is back on the scene. Strangely subdued, but sniffing, snorting, hacking and grunting away with renewed vigour. The only escape is to plug in the headphones and pump up some choons. His throaty troglodyte grunting is still audible no matter how loud the music, but it becomes more distant and therefore bearable.

Today he handed around his new phone number, as his flat was supposedly broken into last week and his phone pinched while he was 'sleeping' (or 'passed out' as it could more accurately be termed).

Sunday 23 October 2011

turn it down!



Unfeasibly hot today. At least 35°C by my estimation.
38° according to my car thermometer, but the car is old and prone to hysteria.

Outdoors is a Gobi desert furnace. Super-heated blasts of air invade the house whenever a door is opened. On the plus side, the washing I put out about 15 minutes ago is dry. Also my bedroom, in which one could lose a toe to frostbite during winter if careless, is now a cool and shady sanctuary.

Tomorrow will be hotter still, it is alleged. Will the feeble office air conditioning cope? Will the MAM return after his mysterious sabbatical? Stay tuned.

Friday 21 October 2011

Dictatorship 101

With the departure of the Red Queen in a flurry of Louis Vuitton, and the MAM currently MIA (possibly never to return), things at the office have been uncharacteristically tranquil. I am therefore forced to look to world events for a bit of drama.

Big news this week is obviously the (hurrah, we got him) capture and then (oops, we killed him) execution of Colonel Gaddafi, who clearly wasn't paying proper attention in Dictator School.

Nice flamboyant touch with the gold-plated gun he was carrying. But surely every crazed despot knows you need a cyanide capsule concealed in a hollow tooth, ready to deny the baying mob their bloody revenge when they finally corner you.

A few less gilded swans and mermaid-shaped sofas, and a modest investment in a spot of World War II pottasium cyanide would have spared everyone the nasty scene outside the drainpipe. Tsk.

Wednesday 19 October 2011

Powercut

The epic three-day PowerPoint marathon came to an end this evening, praise the lord. Never again shall I touch it, apart from tomorrow morning when I will inevitably be called in to make last-minute-before-the-presentation changes.

I also had to produce some stickers today with our company logo on them, but somehow contrived to print all the sticker artwork on the disposable peel-off backing instead of the right side of the paper.
I blame PowerPoint fatigue.

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Pass.



Another solid day of PowerPain. Forty-four slides down, twenty-eight to go.  Losing the will to live.

Incredibly, I received a phone call from my soon-to-be-former acquaintances inviting me back to the pub quiz again tonight. How is this possible? Perhaps I managed to mask my abject loathing of last week's proceedings.

Or, rather more likely, nobody noticed since they were all totally off their faces and effectively enjoying a completely different quiz in another dimension of time and space.

I passed up this golden opportunity and wished them luck in their endeavours (although they are a bit shaky on culture & world events that have occurred post-1979).

Monday 17 October 2011

PowerPointless

Today it was my lot to prepare a presentation document in the dreaded PowerPoint. In the past I have wriggled out of such duties on the grounds that I don't know (and refuse to learn) how PowerPoint works. This time I got suckered in by a plaintive request to 'create a template we can follow', which somehow became 'just take this hideous 40-page strategy document designed by a blindfolded chimpanzee and re-do the whole thing so it looks good'.

I wouldn't exactly say I've become a PowerPoint aficiando through this experience though. After failing to achieve one or two simple tasks, I resorted to designing everything in a different, more helpful programme, and slapping down the artwork in non-editable pictures onto the slides. Which might cause difficulties when the inevitable typos are discovered. I was also less than thrilled to hear that the head of strategy will be looking at the presentation tomorrow to decide which slides he can cull. How about deciding that before I spend 3 hours in Photoshop trying to make a boring spreadsheet look like an appetising plate of food?

BPY5PYXZKYDE

Saturday 15 October 2011

Sorry, Wales.

It's all my fault. I so wanted them to win in the semi-final against France today. I had just settled down to watch when the Welsh captain got sent off for a dangerous tackle. It all went downhill for Wales after that, and when the French gained a 9-3 lead, I left the lounge in disgust and went off to clean the bathroom.

Naturally, the moment I was up to my elbows in bleach and rubber gloves there was a sudden flurry of cheering and excited commentary from the other room. I ran in to discover that Wales had scored a try. Under my scrutiny though, they were overcome with performance anxiety and failed to convert the try for the extra points that would have put them ahead.

Determined not to miss any more excitement, I stayed glued to the screen which, seemingly, was the direct cause of the Welsh team buggering up three more penalty kicks and losing the game by a single point. Mea culpa! Who shall I jinx with my attention next?

Friday 14 October 2011

3:19pm; on the set of the Shoot That Never Ends.

Our child actor has reached new heights of sulky uncooperativeness. No amount of abject begging and cajoling is coaxing a performance out of the little ratbag. We've bought him a remote-control Ferrari as a bribe but its motivational powers have already worn off.

At this point in time, such is our desperation that the little sh*t could have anything his heart desired if he would just stop throwing a strop and kicking his mother. Speaking of which, how his mother felt that her son was destined for cinematic greatness is something of a mystery. Surely your offspring would have manifested some exhibitionist traits, or at the very least the ability to smile on request before you hustled them into a casting agency's lineup.

Wednesday 12 October 2011

Ignorance is Bliss.

I've got a fatal weakness for Trivial Pursuits and General Knowledge contests of all kinds, and last night I paid the ultimate price for this weakness.

Spend the evening on a pub bench sandwiched between two decrepit chain-smoking alcoholic degenerates, being alternately pawed, groped, slurred at, covered in a fine spray of saliva from their enthusiastic drunken babbling and steeped in the smoke of a thousand unfiltered Camels? Not so very appealing. But hey, it's a QUIZ NITE.

Sit alone at an empty table in a crowded pub for half an hour waiting for the belated arrival of said alcoholics (vodka-minutes operate on a different time scale to traditional minutes), then promptly have my full glass of (pulpy) orange juice tipped into my lap? Never mind, it's a QUIZ NITE!

The pub was noisy and my companions were hard of hearing and slow of comprehension, loudly repeating any answer I tried to discreetly whisper in a bellow which travelled to the five surrounding tables and beyond. There were also several vicious arguments along the lines of "No, the Louvre is NOT in Germany".

After all this and despite my largely solo efforts, we only came second. I left before the prize plastic beer key rings were awarded, escaping a final round of Irish coffees.

I am done with quizzes.

Tuesday 11 October 2011

Exposure

Only yesterday I was pondering that this frigging shoot is lasting for all eternity. Little did I know. Upon processing the rolls of film from yesterday, it was discovered that a ghostly white lens-flare appeared like a pale apparition throughout the footage.

Instead of providing definitive proof of life beyond the grave, the culprit has been boringly unmasked as a faulty camera. This means that everything we filmed yesterday and this morning is unusable and must be re-shot (using a conveniently free Saturday).

Re-animating the world's most reluctant child actor is not going to be easy either.

Monday 10 October 2011

Sad ad

I gave the MAM the promised lift this to the shoot this morning, filling my car with a toxic early-morning atmosphere of aftershave, mouthwash and gin fumes.

The advert we're making features a small boy, who sadly is turning out to be an extremely reluctant performer. His role initially required him to sit buckled safely up in the back of a shiny new car, smiling winsomely as his dad grinned back at him from the rear view mirror.

But despite all efforts to coax a smile from him, he maintained the apprehensive look of a child who's just been lured off the playground and into a sweet-flourishing stranger's vehicle, only to discover that the doors can't be opened from the inside. And it was all downhill from there.

We have one more chance tomorrow to persuade him to stop looking like he's just been orphaned in a multi-car pile-up. My hopes are not high.

Sunday 9 October 2011

Joyride

Received a slurred phone call from the MAM this afternoon: 'My carsh broken down. C'n you givrmresshhift'morrowmurg?'. From which I gather he would like a lift to the TV shoot we are on tomorrow morning.

I was going to have to get up quite early to make the call time. Now it's an even earlier start, factoring in a detour to collect this unwanted hitcher.

Friday 7 October 2011

The Queen's Speech

Listen up peasants - it is I, your Queen. 

It may be that certain rumours concerning my future plans have reached your festering ears as you huddle, gossiping, around the water cooler in your sordid little gangs.

The less dull-witted among you may also have noticed that I conspicuously removed every single book, photograph, picture and item of personal memorabilia from my office several months ago.

Know then that my master plan has finally come to fruition, and I shall at last ascend to a position worthy of my outstanding beauty, talent and intelligence. Too long have I languished in this swamp of mediocrity, surrounded by talentless buffoons intent on dragging me down. How I have fretted against the constraints of limited budgets, incompetent staff and difficult clients that demand results. I go now to a glittering new enterprise where I will surround myself with hip, creative, ambitious, über-cool youths. Don't any of you turkeys be holding your breath for a job offer anytime soon.

Furthermore, I strongly suggest that you leave my office forever unoccupied as a shrine to my memory.

HR will be on hand should you require counselling to help you through this time of grief and loss. Just don't bother me.

So long, suckers*


*This is the speech I'm sure Her Majesty would have given, had she not been feeling indisposed and thus on sick leave. The news of her imminent departure was brought to us in her absence by the CEO in a less stirring manner.

Thursday 6 October 2011

Tested & found wanting

Begged off work this morning to see the opthalmologist for a check-up on my dodgy allergy-ridden eyes. The doctor was running late and there were several people still waiting to be seen ahead of me, including a pair of nuns.

After a half an hour's wait the doctor came in and beckoned me. I told her that the nuns were there before me, but she informed me that as emergency cases without appointments, they would have to wait while she dealt with the scheduled patients. Did I insist that she see the nuns first? Well, no. But I really rushed through the eye test and didn't dwell too much on my list of symptoms.

I'm going to hell, aren't I.



Wednesday 5 October 2011

plot thickening

Received a text message from Shady Abdul this evening. He excitedly informs me that 'good progress' has been made in the small matter of the thousands he nicked from me. He alleges that a yet further mysterious middleman is involved, and it is this shadowy individual that Abdul is heroically pursuing to recover my cash.

Whatever. Abdul claims to have involved attorneys, and if the mystery man does not come up with the money by next Tuesday, Abdul's attorneys will (quote) 'cease his assets :)'
His message concluded with a warm and friendly 'Take care'.
Bit late for that.

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Swings & roundabouts

There appears to be some kind of school holiday in progress at the moment, which is great as it means half the usual amount of traffic thronging the roads in the morning. This in turn means precious extra minutes in bed.

Less great are the bored children, who instead of facing conscription or forced labour during the holidays are hanging out at the 'entertainment area' behind my house. It's quite hard to get to as you have to scramble along a steep and rocky path, and of course therein lies the appeal as they try to get as far as possible from parental authority.

During the afternoon it's the 6 to 12 year olds rampaging through the undergrowth, shrieking and ordering each other about in a Lord-of-the-Flies bacchanalia, tearing down branches from the mulberry tree to feed their silkworms. (Kids STILL have silkworms! Surely the most unrewarding pets of all time.)

After dark the feral teenagers emerge. Tranquil evenings on the patio are a distant memory, replaced by the high-pitched squawkings of the adolescents as they endlessly and stridently debate their oh-so-important playground politics, love affairs and tedious random dramas. I never liked teenagers, even when I was one myself. I now see less point in them than ever before.

Monday 3 October 2011

Brush with hair

This afternoon I went to view the edit of the advert we shot on friday - unusually fast turnaround. I was overjoyed to be spending an afternoon out of the office and even more overjoyed at the free lunch laid on by the production house. My joy was tempered, however, when I fished a particularly long, thick hair out of the communal bowl of Greek salad. 

The words do not exist that could adequately describe how much I fear & loathe the discovery of foreign objects in my food. Finding my own hair in my dinner triggers an instant loss of appetite, so finding someone else's shedding was a stomach-turning affront. Which was a great shame because I was really hungry.

Laptop drama update:
I had been referred to a tracing company who would track down the current address of shady laptop guy so that he can be served with a Letter of Demand.

They took their time about it, but today they informed me that they had the address, and once I had paid the invoice they would release this much yearned-for information to me. It seems that their dealings with the criminal classes have tarnished them, however, as I note that the price they quoted me over the phone sneakily excluded VAT which has now been added to the bill. I shall be having a word with them about that. After they've given me the address.