Monday 30 January 2012

Hello, my pretty

A day spent closeted in a sound recording studio in the company of a rather frightful client service woman.

Nobody gets a word in edgeways over her incessant chattering. She sycophantically cackles at any minor witticism made by our clients, fondly imagining she has them wrapped around her little finger. She dresses only in black and her lank black dyed hair sprouts reluctantly from a point way back on an expanse of leathery forehead. There may even be a large wart or two.

But her major crime is a propensity towards unwarranted touchy-feeliness. Her arrival in the room is heralded by a limp hand suddenly caressing your spine in an intimate fashion.

Talking to her inevitably involves your hand being imprisoned in her claw in a display of insincere affection, creating awkwardness as you look for the appropriate moment to disentangle yourself. There are individuals in whom these gestures come across as warm and endearing, but she is not among them.

Saturday 28 January 2012

Collapse

Rejoice, for it is the weekend.
It has been a trying week, what with three quarters of the department working out their last days of notice and not giving much of a flying f*ck about work. Added to this, the demands of a fickle client combined with a lack of internal communication and general ineptitude.

This has been a recipe for long days stretching into evenings at the office, resulting in neglect of self with lack of exercise and consumption of junk food. But now it's the blessed weekend, with time to get some exercise and prepare healthy, nutritious food. So naturally I'm sprawled on the sofa eating a bag of crisps for dinner.

Thursday 26 January 2012

I walk the line

It's time to introduce a new character into this blog, in the form of a man who shall henceforth be known as Moody Bastard. MB is a short, belligerent individual who dresses primarily in black and idolises Johnny Cash. He's had a somewhat checkered career, impeded by an inability to get along with some key people (eg. big, important clients). He sees himself as an uncompromising rebel. Others see him as a stroppy twat.

I now work quite closely with him. He is very passionate about his job and puts in a great deal of effort. That is, when he's not whinging, sulking or generally being obstreperous. Usually we rub along quite well, but occasionally I yearn for him to shut his moaning trap. Today, for instance.

The day was off to a bad start when I woke up in agony, having apparently slept most of the night with my legs crossed in some kind of circulation-squeezing tangle. The pain has still not abated. Towards 5pm on this day of agony occurred a mini-crisis concerning advertising space which was discovered to have been booked, and now had to urgently be filled with something.

We decided to call the animation company working on the TV campaign for the client, to see if they could supply us with a 3D rendering from the TV ad to use in print. MB was very much against this plan, as he did not want to make them 'panic' and interrupt the TV work they were doing. Patiently we explained that it would be a tentative enquiry, and we would not press them if they couldn't manage it. MB stridently complained over and over that 'nobody was listening to him' (ie: nobody was obeying his orders). He then buggered off home, leaving us to toil.

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Arachnology

I've identified yesterday's visitor as Pseudolychas ochraceus. According to literature found on the trusty interweb, it 'can deliver a painful sting but not life threatening under normal circumstances'.

It seems that specimens found in the house are usually males seeking a mate. So tragically, it set out looking for love and ended up flushed down a toilet. A salutory lesson.

Monday 23 January 2012

Spare Room of Death

Just discovered this on the floor.
Isn't it the small ones that are the most dangerous?
I thought it was dead, but prodding it with a bit of kitchen towel is caused it to snap its pincers.

A crock.

Skipping through the channels last night, I couldn't resist watching a bit of Mega Shark versus Crocosaurus. This is the sequel, apparently, to Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus. Having seen off the octopus, a new threat rises to challenge Mega Shark.

Quoting from the plot outline: 'Deep in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an illegal diamond mining operation is interrupted by the presence of a giant 1,500-foot crocodile.' That certainly would cause a little interruption.
Crocosaurus gets a few tranquilizer darts in the mouth, and is loaded onto a cargo ship bound for Florida. En route the ship gets attacked by Mega Shark, which is unconvincingly about twice the size of the ship.
It's not that I was expecting much, but even so the special effects were quite astonishingly crap. Stop-animation plasticine models would have been more convincing. And how do you end up acting in a film like that? Your chances of career advancement must be slim with that on your resumé. I'm intrigued by the whole thing.

Although come to think of it... if my career in advertising were directly translated into the sphere of film-making, I would definitely be at the Crocosaurus end of the spectrum as opposed to, say, the King's Speech.

Saturday 21 January 2012

Onslaught

I've been putting off clothes shopping for so long my wardrobe has been reduced to food-stained rags. Which don't even fit properly after a Christmas of stuffing my face with rich tea biscuits and chocolate mini rolls.

As a result, today was dedicated to a take-no-prisoners blitz on the shops. I ended up with a sackload of clothes including a blue chambray top which I was a bit ambivalent about, but I'd made them strip a mannequin because it was wearing the only one in the right size, so I felt obliged to buy it.

Friday 20 January 2012

Sugar Daddy


The oily spring rolls have been assimilated somehow, leaving behind only a faint sense of contamination. What a miracle of waste-processing is the human body.

Today I went for lunch with a friend at Hugo's country restaurant. Behind us were four elderly gents on whose conversation I was eavesdropping. The one sitting closest to me seemed a bit less decrepit and rheumy-eyed than his friends, and was declaring in a plummy English voice that his new year's resolution was to find himself a bride.  There were only so many games of golf and lunches that could occupy him it seemed, and he was in search of more diverting company.

I was sorely tempted to turn around and give him my number. I mean, how many more years could he possibly live before popping his clogs and leaving his massive house and wine cellar to me?

Alas, I bottled out. Ergo, years of thankless toil remain stretched out ahead of me.


Thursday 19 January 2012

Bleghhh

Worked late. With a TV deadline of tomorrow morning, the client is still making changes to reverse the changes they made yesterday to their previous changes. Had a dinner of massively oily spring rolls, crisps and fizzy drinks courtesy of the production company.

Now I'm at home feeling quite stomach-churningly ill. Oil, salt and sugar foam in turmoil within my small intestine. I have to lie stretched out on the tiled floor of the lounge to cool down my legs, which for some reason are radiating enormous amounts of heat - surely a bad sign.

Wednesday 18 January 2012

Busted

Earlier today I was chatting in the corridor to a workmate whod just come back from sick leave. He mentioned that according to the MAM, things were not at all busy at the office (not for him, maybe).
 
I was just pointing out that hard work & the MAM are unacquainted at the best of times, when a nearby door swung open and the man himself walked past in time to hear this. In my opinion his indignant protests were undermined by the fact that he was on his way to the balcony for a smoke at the time.
 
I remain unrepentant.


Tuesday 17 January 2012

No Michelin Stars

STOP PRESS! A new fast food option has opened at the shopping centre near our office. And not before time, because the delights of every other restaurant/food vendor have been sampled many times over. The new establishment is 'Snoekies', originally of Hout Bay in Cape Town – a cheap and cheerful, slightly squalid café in the harbour that churns out massive quantities of fish and chips.
 
Our local Snoekies has gone more upmarket, but obviously it lacks the vital ambience of lurking predatory seagulls and boats chugging by. The staff are staying true to Snoekies general disinterest in customer service however. 

I went there for lunch with a couple of colleagues on our way back from a meeting yesterday. There were little tables clustered outside, but the people behind the counter seemed unable to believe that we actually wanted to eat there. Two different people came outside to check that this was indeed the case. When a man eventually emerged with our first batch of our orders, he put two plates on the table and walked away without explanation, stopping once to look back wordlessly - presumably to check if we were fighting it out over who was getting the food.

I will admit though, that the fish and chips were very good indeed.

Saturday 14 January 2012

La vie est bonne.


My Friday the 13th flight passed without incident, apart from an hour-long delay due to lightning once again being in the vicinity. On arrival I collected my Nissan Micra from Avis and zipped off to the guesthouse which, at first impression, was a tiny bit disappointing.

Somehow the website had managed to convey an aura of rustic Cape Dutch charm, when in fact the establishment turned out to be a suburban face-brick villa.

Also, if you’re going to give your face-brick B&B a wanky french wine-related name, at least have ‘Le Petit Whatever’ helpfully inscribed on a sign somewhere outside. I spent 10 minutes at the kerb rifling through my documents, convinced Tomtom had led me to some random false address.

My hostess turned out to be a bit on the creepy side. She was accompanied by a plump dachshund and reminded me of the woman in that Roald Dahl story, ‘The Landlady’, who turns out to have killed and stuffed all her tenants.  Not to mention her pet DACSCHUND.

She was explaining how to set the burglar alarm for my room when I cut in with 'I'm sure that won't be necessary, will it?' She gave me a long, thoughtful look and said 'Well, I don't know...'

I’ve warmed to the place though, after a scoffing down a very tasty breakfast outside my room this morning at my own little table, with a panoramic view of the mountain opposite.

I had also feared the worst of the Celeb endorsement TV shoot, but it turned out to be unexpectedly pleasant. The shoot took place on location, in the kitchen of an absolutely amazing millionaire’s gaff halfway up a mountainside in Tokai. 

There was a huge glass-enclosed sun room, an infinity pool and an epic view. Strangely, in the garden the eccentric millionaires were keeping several aggressive chickens, some turkeys, a large pig and a couple of dogs, the smaller of which saw off a huge male baboon that invaded the garden during filming.

The celeb in question (Sam Cowen) turned out to be quite nice, although her celebrity status was lost on me as I haven’t listened to the radio since mp3’s were invented, and had only the very vaguest idea of who she was.

I can report that she was extremely spotty though, having recently gone on some kind of lemon-based detox. Praise the Lord for the miracle of make-up.

Thursday 12 January 2012

No business like showbusiness

I'm packing once again - this time being dispatched to Cape Town for the weekend to oversee minor celebs telling the camera how much they LOVE a certain brand of chocolatey cereal. A relatively small price to pay for two free nights in the lovely Constantia valley (with car hire thrown in).

So strictly speaking, I could pompously call it a business trip - indulging in a moment's fancy that this is a proper, grown-up job. An illusion which is shattered the minute you look around the office and clock the MAM cackling at YouTube videos in his converse shoes, baggy jeans and food-soiled t-shirt straining to cover his ample beer gut. Come to think of it, two nights in the Bates Motel would be a welcome respite.

Wednesday 11 January 2012

Malaise

A day of decidedly little excitement. Highlight: collecting my long black coat from the dry cleaner's. When I took the plastic off it looked like someone used it to sweep a factory floor, then lined the basket of a siamese cat with it. Sent it back.

Can't get properly stuck into work because the tragically disorganised clients haven't given us the information we need. It goes without saying that the ridiculously tight deadline they've stipulated remains immovable despite their time-wasting dithering.

Tuesday 10 January 2012

Diversions

Big presentation to one of our more difficult clients this morning. We were there to present a TV idea, followed by examples of print work and a magazine. But first, we had to suffer through the media department's presentation - a dull, statistic-heavy monologue delivered by an uncharismatic woman with an extremely twittery voice.

Unfortunately, playing games on your phone during a meeting is frowned upon, unless you're the client. But you can get away with a certain amount of doodling as long as the attention is directed elsewhere.

My diary is a veritable fresco of words like 'AAAAARRGGHH' painstakingly rendered in 3-D lettering, a lot of calligraphic 'ZZZZZZ's, and drawings of giant sharks tearing apart tiny divers. The product of a disturbed mind? Yes.

Finally it was time for the creative bits to be presented. An animation studio had put in a lot of work over the weekend and given us some very impressive moving footage to present. On the whole it seemed to go down quite well, apart from one or two dissenting voices among the assembled clients.

There was one persistently negative woman who claimed that she found our animation 'irritating'. She featured in some particularly graphic diver-torn-limb-from-limb illustrations.

Sunday 8 January 2012

The Blair Witch Report

DAY ONE:
  
Made it about a hundred kilometers before our catastrophically weak bladders caused us to stop at the first toll-gate for a comfort break. Here we encountered the foulest toilet in the world, clearly frequented exclusively by truckers and their lady friends. We did what had to be done, slathered on our waterless hand sanitiser and carried on up the road, only to discover a pristine Shell Ultra City complete with well-maintained restrooms gleaming like a mirage just over the next rise.

An hour or so later, we arrived at our destination. The setting was idyllic - log cabins scattered among the trees of a pine forest, near a trout-filled lake in a huge plantation. We were informed by the lodge staff that the power supply had been cut off during a violent storm the night before, but it would be back on by evening.

Needless to say, it was not. By evening it had started to rain quite heavily. We cooked the meat we had brought with us, huddled over the fire in the gloom while an ever-increasing downpour pounded the unfortunate back of the designated chef (not me). We then dined around the tiny kitchen table. The chicken in particular was the most soft and tender I've ever had. A nearby candle eventually revealed that this was because it wasn't in fact cooked - it had been difficult to detect the readiness of the meat by the feeble light of a torch.

A fire was lit in the lounge (in a fireplace), before we all retired early.


DAY TWO:

Still no electricity. We splashed some cold water on ourselves and got ready to go into the nearest town for breakfast. I could now see that the water bottle I'd filled the night before from the tap contained a brownish liquid, verging on tea-coloured. Quite similar to the water in the lake, which I suspect it was.

After a spot of breakfast and some shopping, we returned to the lodge post lunchtime to discover that there was still no change in the state of affairs vis-á-vis the electricity. By this time all the perishables we'd optimistically stuffed in the fridge were smelling decidedly ripe. We hired a rod and tried some fishing, with one of the children triumphantly hauling in a 12 centimeter bass. This record remained unbroken for the rest of the day. At about 3 o'clock we'd just about decided to cut short our visit, unable to face another night without ablutions and light, when the power finally came back on.

Oh, the rapture of a hot shower! Even in brown water.


DAY THREE:

Another shower. By this time the water in the tank had heated to such a volcanic degree that you needed asbestos gloves to touch the hot tap. The brass tap was also leaking a steady trickle of boiling water, making it hard not to accidentally sear your bottom from time to time. Showering was therefore a chorus of periodic shrieks and howls of pain. I'm not complaining, though.

Everyone went for a final walk and a frolic in the haystacks near the stables, where we encountered a man taking a meerkat for a walk on a lead. The meerkat was introduced to us as Twinkie, and we learned that meerkats apparently don't make very good pets at all. The man told us how he'd lost feeling in his hand where Twinkie had given him a nip while he was teasing her, so we kept a safe distance. Twinkie dug up worms in the grass, purring to herself, while the man told us how she'd been orphaned when a pup and tossed out by her clan in the Kalahari. She now lived with him on the plantation, sleeping on her own electric blanket and eating chicken thighs (no other part of the chicken being to her taste).

We reluctantly said goodbye to Twinkie, packed up and headed back to the big city, electricity and transparent drinking water. It really was a lovely weekend.


Thursday 5 January 2012

Blair Witch Weekend

Friends and I are setting off tomorrow for a long weekend in a secluded cabin surrounded by woods, booked (with admirable foresight) towards the end of last year.

A device has been optimistically packed which will smoke the trout we hope to tantalise out of the nearby lake. If that fails, we'll have to survive by foraging for grubs and fungi.

Not really. Chocolate digestive biscuits will provide all the nutrition we need.

We are definitely not taking a camcorder.

Wednesday 4 January 2012

Nose, grindstone.

Day 2 back at work.

This could be the moment to check that UK lottery ticket I've been saving. Perhaps the sacrifice of one of next door's chickens will appease the gods enough to ensure a future of carefree idling.

Tuesday 3 January 2012

Ghetto living

Back at work today, alas. The MAM made the scene (briefly), appearing to have misplaced his razor about five days ago. He then had to go home early due to feeling indisposed. This whole 'new year' thing has passed me by. They all blur into one anyway as you get older. Of course there was the first of the company's 'Hope you all had a refreshing break and are ready for the challenges of 2012' emails. Delete.

Driving up to my house after work I was mildly surprised to see a dishevelled chicken crossing the road in front of my car, accompanied by a couple of the neighbour's semi-clothed children.

It appears that the chicken is not a much-loved family pet, as a few minutes later a representative of the body corporate was to be heard remonstrating with the neighbours about the slaughter of animals on their patio. Apparently this is streng verboten, if you can believe such petty bureaucracy. Tsk.

Sunday 1 January 2012

To Infinity and Beyond

As usual, didn't make it to midnight on New Year's Eve. Was in bed by 10.30pm, with a vague return to consciousness around twelve when the fireworks started up. Then startled awake at 4.15am by a sudden loud clattering noise, seemingly in my bedroom.

I decided it could only be coming from behind the little door which leads into the spooky loft space. I got up the courage to open the door and investigate using the (slightly feeble) iPhone flashlight app, but nothing was revealed. The rain tapping against the window and the lit-up Gothic church visible outside did not help to lighten the atmosphere.

Today was spent in the epic task of helping to tidy the children's toy room, and preparations for tonight's flight home. My niece wanted to know why I was taking off my bed linen. When I told her it was going to be washed, her response was 'Why, did somebody wee on it?'. Clearly, this is the sole reason for the doing of laundry when you are four.

Finally, I took a last walk in the p*ssing rain to the corner shop using the children's Buzz Lightyear umbrella which was frankly a little on the small side. This will be a damp flight.