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.

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).

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Action!

The commercial shoot today was fairly shambolic, as they often are.

Takes had to be timed around the noisy flapping of a lost pigeon doing circuits around the high ceiling of the studio.

The wardrobe lady didn't seem to have taken our actor's measurements at all. He was meant to be paying a cool young guy, but his straight-leg jeans ended a couple of centimetres above his shoes, his jacket had sleeves so short it looked like he borrowed it from a 12 year old, and the striped shirt tucked into his waistband bulged outwards with a slightly overhanging belly. Or maybe that's the hot new look.

He also had some sort of mental block with his lines. The words 'it's got a 1600 engine' were so incredibly complex he forgot them every time.

Our director had spent a year studying in America, and had returned with a quite unconvincing but apparently permanent pseudo hip-hop accent. Whilst this did not impact directly on the success of the shoot, it did add an extra level of irritation. For me, anyway.

crack lip

Committed murder in my heart repeatedly today. Eventually resorted to throwing things at the MAM every time he HAARRAGHed his throat clear of phlegm.

He had a prominent burn smack in the middle of his lower lip today, not for the first time. He claims the filter of his cigarette sometimes sticks to his lip and causes a burn. But having mentioned this to a chain-smoking acquaintance who is - how shall we say - no stranger to the seedier side of life, this seems unlikely. Apparently you sustain a burn like that if you're a bit careless when your crack pipe gets too hot. Eeeeeek!

This would certainly explain the red-rimmed eyes, irritated mucous membranes and nervous fidgeting. However, loss of appetite and malnutrition are a noted side-effect, so his devotion to pies might blow this theory out of the water.

Reunited

Uneventful return to office life. MAM sadly has not succumbed to chronic emphysema in my absence, but hacked and snorted his way through today's obligatory 8 hours. His new shoes are starting to take on the aroma of his former pair, turfed out after I informed him they smelled like a dead rat.

Next week we are on a TV shoot together! I have to endure his insistence during casting sessions that the little boy in the commercial have a 'hot chick' playing his mother. Saaaaad.

Baggage.

Introducing some conditions as yet unnamed by science, which are endemic to the average airport baggage reclaim area:


Invidia Saccus: Feelings of envy and wrath towards those who are smugly plucking their bags from the conveyor belt.

Excrucius Cervix: Damage to neck from peering fruitlessly towards plastic flaps where suitcases are meant to pop out.

Paraphernalia Impatiens: Mounting irritation at non-appearance of bags.

Odium Portatus: Deep hatred of that ugly blue suitcase with the offensively cheerful rainbow-coloured strap around it, now making its 25th circuit of the carousel while there is no sign whatsoever of your bags.

Saccus Incredulitas: Disbelief that bags have STILL not appeared.

Impedimentia Culpa: The dawning of a dark suspicion that someone has surreptitiously loaded your baggage onto their trolley and made off with it.

Apparatus Pax: Grudging relief at eventual appearance of bags.

Whale-Watch

We did not see this whale.

We saw this whale.

This being a lovely spring day, we took the long drive out to Hermanus - a town fronting a stretch of ocean which is famously the favoured haunt of several whale species, notably the Southern Right, Humpback and Bryde's whale.

They are reputed to breach the water regularly here, leaping out in spectacular displays of size and power.

Now, I'm not saying this doesn't ever happen. Merely that it was yet another demonstration of the Dream vs Reality syndrome. We were very lucky in that there was a whale virtually everywhere you looked. Throw your ice cream cone into the sea and it would hit a whale.

It's just that they weren't feeling all that terribly energetic, and were mostly impersonating massive barnacle-encrusted floating boulders.

Then again, this could be the curse of the camera. There's the spectacular professional camera with mega-lenses which a photographer can use to capture and enhance a fleeting event, making it even more impressive than it would appear to the naked eye (photo 1).

Then there's the camera the rest of us use, capable of taking a fairly awe-inspiring sight and making it look ten times further away and more insignificant than it would appear to the naked eye (photo 2).

And no, this is not down to the poor skills of the photographer. Well, not entirely.

That Green Airline

Just because it's a low-cost airline, does that mean it absolutely has to smell as though the floor's been mopped with a bucket containing a solution of 1 part water to 3 parts urine?

And while I agree that having hygienic little covers to encase the head-rests is a genteel touch, it's less useful when they are all missing - leaving 180 velcro-topped seats to anchor your clothing the instant you lean on or even brush past one. Judging by the crop of faded multi-coloured wool trapped in the velcro, this has been a long-standing conition.

Added to this, the flight was 20 minutes late, ran out of sandwiches after we'd been in the air just a short time, and I had to endure the pain of watching a teenage girl ram her stuffed cabin trolley into the overhead locker right on top of my fragile, artfully gift-wrapped paper bag of Body Shop goodies.

I've been on trans-continental flights that seemed shorter.

But It was all worth it because here I am with friends in the lovely Cape for the weekend, trying to stop obsessing about the sluggish legal battle to recover my missing fortune from dodgy pony-tailed laptop guy.