Sometimes events coincide in quite a lovely and unexpected way, this happened on Friday. A quick glance at my my blog archive earlier this week reminded me that my New Year’s resolution of writing a post every day had been a grotesque fail. I had begun to blame a lack of writing desk in the flat. I have a perfect desk for writing at work, but they don’t pay me to write blog posts. They pay to do more work-based stuff (and to be Minesweeper World Champion).
So last week I ordered an Ikea desk. And due to my intense shoddiness at building flat-pack furniture, a handy-man to put it together for me. That sounds decadent and quite unmanly, but I really would’ve shagged that desk had I been in charge of the aln key. Leaving a daily reminder of my lack of handiness by writing blog posts at a wonky surface.
The desk arrived on Thursday night, quickly followed by my handy-man. My gay handy-man. Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m in no way homophobic. I’m willing to sleep with a man to prove this (more on that later). But it did irk me that unflatpackfurniture.com hadn’t sent me someone a little more gruff to build the desk. Paternal even.
The day worked itself out in the end. I did a sketch at a comedy night with Kieran Coyle, it was about 8 minutes long and about two dysfunctional comics who live, and sleep, together. Any residual guilt about being a little harsh and knee-jerk judgemental about my gay handyman quickly resided as I lay in bed with another man trying to make a crowd of people laugh.
This post was written at a very stable and satisfactory work surface.
I’ve had guilt forced upon me today. Through no fault of my own I feel bad. I don’t mind feeling guilty of my own doing, but today it’s been allocated to me by the actions of someone else.
A quick visit to Sainsbury’s for a budget lunch (£3 meal deal), plus a £1.95 cosmetic purchase that I’ll not get into - meant the fiver I had on me was ample. At the check-out I asked the lady (I thought she was a lady at this point) to “just put the change in the Sport Relief charity bucket”. All good, I’ve done the obvious thing of not being precious about a very small bit of change when there’s a charity bucket on the counter.
But then she asked me if I wanted a badge. I didn’t want a badge, and didn’t really deserve one for that matter. But she insisted “go on, show you’ve gone the extra mile”. I hadn’t gone an extra mile. Or even the initial mile. I’d gone a handful of yards at best.
But she insisted, the evil bitch. (In hindsight this was no lady). She stuck the badge on my chest in front of a queue of people who looked at me like I’d just clubbed one of the unfortunate people the charity was set up to support. What they’d witnessed was not me going the extra mile - but me buying a badge. I guess 5p only just covers my nice new badge’s production cost. If there’s a profit involved here, then it’s small. There’s nothing charitable in taking a badge for a donation so small that Sport Relief are barely breaking-even on the deal.
I think I need to cancel my two pay-giving standing orders (WWF and Oxfam, FYI) and spend the same amount making very conspicuous donations in local retailers to get some of my pride back. “Keep the £2 change from this Subway purchase good woman, and with it make the lives of others better - so that when I am gone they will say, there is a man who went the extra mile for his fellow man”.
Or, I could just go back to Sainsbury’s later and top up the payment for my shiny new badge.
A quick pint after work last night took me to a very ‘after-worky’ type of place in Farringdon. A lot of spritzers and snacks that have to measured out. My rule of thumb is generally that no matter how down to earth a pub seems, if it serves wasabi peas its a place worth getting out of. This was one of those places. I couldn’t help but be slightly annoyed by a table of what looked like city-folk having the most amazing time playing jenga. I’ve played jenga (not a patch on buckaroo) and the anticipation of wood falling to the table kind of loses it’s thrill after about three goes. They’re all going to fall down, we are going to rebuild them, they’re all going to fall again, when does this all end? Would anyone mind if I punched myself repeatedly in the testicles just to mix things up a bit?
The thing with fun is, if you are going to have it, do it properly. There’s not much point in having shit fun. And that’s what this table of suits were having. It didn’t need me to tell them that either. Pushing their little jenga logs through, hoping the lot didn’t fall over, while trying not to cry. It made me sad just to look at them. Every time the tower fell they lept up, laughed like drains, and sank a shot of what I presume was some mind-bending superdrug.
Fun is like happiness I guess. It’s all good as long as you have very low expectations. Ask for too much and you’ll spend your life miserable, be satisfied with much, much less and you are only a game of jenga away from a night spent grinning like a stupid baby.
I turned my attention back to the company I was with and finished my drink. In hindsight, I had one drink more than is needed on a school-night. Because when I got home I wrote 3 minutes of material about my being the ‘jazz artist of masturbators’. An improviser. Pushing the form to its limits. It would make quite a lovely piece of performance art, if I can get round to borrowing a tie and a chair. Or maybe a sketch. Either way, it will never come out on stage - [Boom!].
Mother - I know you read this by the way, I am sorry.
I’ve been very sociable this weekend, very sociable. I was at a party on Friday. And there can be little argument that I was the life and soul (of the taxi ride home). Due to getting a bit carried away with the homemade punch, I woke up creamed yesterday. I mean really tired, not drenched in semen.
I still managed to get to Westfield to finish my aborted shopping trip of a fortnight ago. This time getting through with flying colours. So much so that I rewarded myself with a burger in the food court. I’m wary of food courts. But this one claims that it has the “Best foods from around the world”. They had pizza, madras, dim sum. So they got most of the names right.
I ordered a burger, playing safe, there’s not much you can do to bugger up a burger. I paid up front with my order, which is usually a sign that what you are about to receive is going to be ghastly. However this was going to be the best burger in the world, like the sign said. But the number the ‘Banger Bros’ woman gave me to listen out for her scream at me in a few minutes, was ‘7’. And this was half 6. That means that yesterday, only a half dozen of the people of East London were intrigued enough to find out what the finest food in the world looked like. This doesn’t bode well for the Olympics.
Why are we bringing the most talented athletes from around the world to East London, if the locals can’t even appreciate the difference between the “Best foods from around the world” and the local rubbish. Do they not see the opportunity Westfield shopping centre is putting on their doorstep?? Those hard working food experts who have scoured the globe to bring us the finest cuisine mankind has to offer. The millions they’ve spent on research. Men have been broken on their quest to get the smoothest pasta, the richest spices, the oiliest olive oil. Years ruined. Marriages collapsed And what gratitude? None. It’s shocking. For my part, I thank them. The burger was perfectly edible.
Tonight, for the first time in over 15 years, I had a fight. I have avoided fighting on many occasions, mostly because my one fight experience had till now left me with a fighting record of 1 fight and 1 KO - against. It wasn’t entirely a fair scrap to be fair, given he was 3 times larger than me, far more keen on fighting than I was, and had caught me while I was trying to put my shoes on. He caught me with one lucky punch. Then subsequently with another seven punches which, on reflection, were not lucky at all. The lucky punch barely seemed to matter given he was clearly more adept at this anger and violence lark than I was then, or at any point since.
I’ve been waiting for the time to put my record right. And, tonight, I came back strong. Not against a man. Because they are nimble and perfectly capable at hitting back. Better to find an opponent who has no intention of laying a paw on me and that silently takes a beating for the team. So, my ex-flatmate left a desk behind that I didn’t want to keep, and he didn’t want to take - both of us equally agreeing that this was, while broadly-speaking functional, a shit desk. So, I shoved it in the garden out of sight weeks ago to graze next to a wooden stool that I’ve since chuckled at seeing cuddled up to it every day. Mainly because I think it looks to the neighbours that I am some sort of mental case who writes copy from the comfort of my patio.
So tonight, ahead of tomorrow’s landlord inspection I had to put an end to this desk. I’m not a man who has tools, so I took a big old shoe to it. It was very much a current shoe, in hind-sight, but it’s definitely an old shoe now. It’s last act was to lash out in anger at my old desk. I felt quite the prize-fighter as I danced around a pile of sodden wood shouting “stay down, stay down!”, as it sat there. Defeated.
I feel like I’ve tapped into some latent aggression towards dormant furniture. I might smash the living daylights out of cupboard space in the morning - anything that lets me bleed out some long-hidden masculinity. I am a contender. When it comes to domestic fittings.
Last night’s ending pretty much summed up my weekend. I stumbled back to the flat only to unlock the front door and waltz in to complete darkness. Power cuts are inconvenient at the best of times, but under the considerable influence of alcohol it was even more cryptic than usual. My power goes every fortnight or so (electricity I mean, not my actual power - which is non-existent and therefore not as prone to switching itself off), and it’s simply a case of prodding a switch in the hall upstairs with a broom. Easy enough, when I can stand up straight. But I was stumbling around like a stupidly inebriated blind man, waving a broom handle in the air like I was trying to channel lightning.
After about ten minutes of swinging my life-saving stick around the place I managed to get the switch back on, only to get back downstairs into my nicely-lit flat, only to find it was illuminating an impressively large dollop of cat poo on my new kitchen tiles. Plural too, he’d managed to cover at least three tiles with pooey paw prints.
Clearly a power cut isn’t the ideal time to shit on the floor. Note to self.
I finished last night with a special fried rice and mixed kebab. The latter was miserable and the former an utter lie. I’m not sure what it thought it might have meant by calling itself special. Maybe if I’d planted it in my garden it would’ve shot up into a giant beanstalk, or sprung crops from which I could pluck fresh new special fried rice meals. There was no such magic happening as I shovelled it into my miserable face. Not the best start to the weekend.
It gets worse. Today I face the dreaded annual shopping experience, to the new Westfield in Stratford. I was tempted to go down to Brick Lane and pretend to be trendy - it’s not happening. I’ve still got the elasticated trousers from the last time I got carried away with fashion. They lie at the bottom of my wardrobe like a reminder about how silly mankind can be when they get sartorially ambitious. This time I’ll go about the task more sensibly and buy clothes that look decent enough, but that I can fit into. Which is pretty much the main function of clothes anyway.
I still haven’t settled on what my look should be for the year - which is a dangerous state of mind when I shop as rarely as I do. If I have an off-day and stumble into All Saints I could spend the rest of the year made up like the fifth Libertine. I have some serious thinking to do on the way over. The sporty thing last year didn’t last too long. A brief dalliance with the preppy look the year before didn’t deliver me any awards either.
I think this year’s look has to be something a bit more achievable. I think distressed is a good starting place. Maybe borderline nervous breakdown even, if I can afford it. From the ground up sockless plimsoles, dungarees and an Abercrombie and Fitch sweater (to imply a level of wealth). Accessorised with top hat or silk neckerchief. I will launch my new look tonight, I expect some very positive comments.
Today has been a day of pain. As was yesterday. And the day before. Launching me and my body back into sport on Monday seemed an incredible idea. On Monday. Tuesday hinted it might not have been. Yesterday and today have done nothing to disagree with Tuesday. I’ve no great designs on being overly supple, but I’ve walked around for 48 hours like a plank of wood.
I did have a moment of flexibility this afternoon, when I managed to get off the toilet within three deep breaths and over a minute of leveraging myself off the cistern. If this goes on much longer I might as well bite the bullet and fork out for a mobility scooter. My mother used to say that my not washing up my dishes was the height of laziness, but I think my turning up in the office every day in a mobility scooter is the actual height of laziness.
Looking back on it though, it was quite an effort. I managed to knock the ball about a bit, even scored a couple of goals that several mediocre professional players would’ve proud of. If not proud, certainly not utterly ashamed of. I wonder if any league scouts were there, looking for a bargain. I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first to be plucked from the hot-bed of football that is Old Street Power-League 4-a-side midweek league (4th division).
I might have even made it into the regular line-up - meaning that every Monday I can run around and show off my skills, and every Tuesday to Friday stumble around at work showing off a variety of winces and groans. At least when I get to be a pensioner I will have put some pretty decent practise in. I’ll have it down to a fine art.
The inadvertent single-foodstuff-banquet I ‘enjoyed’ last night is weighing heavily today. And the carbs intake is making my Monday even more lethargic than usual. So, I’m fast-tracking my new routine which had previously been fast-tracked for two weeks ago. I’ve just had a diet soup for lunch. I didn’t realise soup was that fattening that it required a ‘diet’ version, but apparently it’s actually chocked-full of sugar, gristle and lard. Given what the pack told me I’m surprised you people can get through a bowl of ox tail without a cardiac arrest.
The problem is, as with most foods that are diet pre-fixed, it was awful. Normally eating stuff does have one small part joy added into the recipe. Mountains of mash potato notwithstanding. Not in this case, I was bored to tears. Ham and sweetcorn, apparently, but I’ll be buggered if I could find any ham. I lost over an ounce just looking for it. It wasn’t there. On the front of the packet you couldn’t get moved for the bloody stuff. Open it up and look inside and it was a decidedly pig-free experience. Sweetcorn had a complete monopoly in there, as well as traces of orange stuff that was doing a pretty poor job of imitating carrot.
I can understand the ham taking a back-seat here, it’s meat, therefore a bit fattening – best skimp a bit on that. But carrot? How morbidly obese did the soup manufacturers think I was that I’ve got to side-step carrot? At the very least put in there and let me judge for myself whether I want to see in the dark more than I want to fit at my desk.
The other side of the health-kick combo is exercising. But that’s not going to happen given it’s bloody freezing outside and we have snow on the forecast for the week. So I’ve got to commit myself to the soup. I’m quite all on or nothing so If I even veer off the meatless slop, I’ll be on 12-inch subways by Wednesday. I might bite the bullet and buy a multi-pack of the diet soup of the veggie variety. I’ve got no doubt it will be equally tasteless, but at least I won’t have the dual indignity of being simultaneously lied to.
Today has been one of massive home-cooking success. My dinner of bangers and mash was as tasty as it was extreme. Bangers were made and finished some four hours ago. Mash was made four hours ago and due to a slight quantity issue, I’m still grazing on them now.
Apparently the way to measure the mash I needed was to count the potatoes I’d usually eat when asked the question “how many potatoes do you want?”. Not by working out how many potatoes it actually takes to fill the sauce-pan.
It turns out it takes a lot of potatoes to fill a sauce-pan. Significantly more than it takes to fill my tummy. I’m still finishing them though, I refuse to be beaten by a starchy vegetable, no matter how profound the amount. The fork is long gone and I’m now just over-feeding myself mash with a table-spoon. I remember a time when I was hungry. That seems like a distant memory now.
I’m starting to wonder if it’s possible to cause myself long-term personal damage due to a carbs over-does. I don’t think it is. But I googled it just to be sure. It turns out I’ll be fine, I might just feel a bit tired for while. The Atkins lot must be a lethargic bunch. I wonder if they get their carbs home-delivered. Much more of these, admittdely delicious, creamy tats and I’ll not get up for work tomorrow.
I think next time I’ll follow Jamie’s recipe right down to the serving amounts. There’s little difference feeling sick because of poorly-prepared food and feeling sick because well-prepared food taking me over four hours to get through.
My resolution of blogging every day has taken a bit of a kicking recently. But I have an excuse, Mark Coverdale and I made our spoken-word debut on Wednesday at Rabbie Burns night 2012. It was actually my Rabbie Burns night debut, full-stop. We did a ten minute story that actually hovered obediently around the ten minute mark, surprisingly given we’d not rehearsed.
I had wanted the occasion to be quite low-key, what with the story being quite sketchy and only just finished hours before the event. If we could get in there, get a chuckle or two and get out with our money-makers in one piece I’d have been happy. Mark, who has a relatively strong sense of occasion had other ideas. His painted illustrations arrived in stupidly large A1 form, in an ornate picture frame and sat atop a wooden easel. He revealed them one at a time (mostly) on cue to the story, dressed in a silver-buttoned jacket, with top hat and curators gloves. I wore a cardigan.
We were immediately spotted as suitable headliners and given the post-haggis spot. That’s some pressure to pile on a story about a failing party that has barely been recited before. In the end it wasn’t all that bad. I tripped over a few lines that I must’ve dropped in there just to fuck myself. But there were genuinely lovely responses to a couple of bits - particularly when they married up well with Mark’s artwork. I think we’ve stumbled upon a nice word and image combo, we are toying with the idea of writing something else and taking it to other events under the touring moniker of Billy Ballsack and the Bukkake Brothers. Watch out for us.
The rest of the night unsurprisingly followed the event rules (that weren’t announced to me pre-event) that the content of the contributions should be about Rabbie Burns and no more than three minutes long. If it was absolutely necessary to be broader in content, then you could talk/dance/sing about the Scottish. Not the brief I’d been working to for the past fortnight if I’m honest. I had three minutes that were nothing to do with Burns or his tartany-clan. To make it worse I had another seven and a half minutes that if anything were even less Scottish. It was so non-Scottish that it was bordering on bigotry.
I don’t think it’s anti-Scottish to not mention the Scottish at a Rabbie Burns spooken-word night. But there did seem to be audible shuffling of feet and mumblings from some people. I think some of my paragraphs might have implied they were leading up to me saying “shortbread”, but at the last minute veered of into something else entirely. Like a story-telling flirt. Had I known it would have this effect I would’ve deliberately written a whole set of passages that would tantalisingly skate around every Scottish cliche I could muster, getting the crowd infuriatingly hot and flustered but never actually delivering the money-shot of my using the word “kilt”.
Next year, definitely.
Two of my New Year resolutions came head to head today. Be more healthy, and lose a few pounds. I went to bed last night alive and well, and woke up at 2am filled by a toxic slew in a rush. I timed the journey to the toilet at around a second flat. Myself and the toilet became quite close acquaintances for the next 6 hours. So, I have lost about 6 pounds today - result! By the smell of what poured out like a drain, it was doing very little positive inside me anyway.
I felt a bit delirious by noon. I think that was the highlight of the day. I couldn’t sleep for wanting to pass out. That’s a fun game, nodding off every ten minutes. And waking up with a jolt, every ten minutes. I had to pull myself together and get to the shop because I’d ran out of toilet roll. I must’ve looked quite the treat in my lounge trousers, cardie, flip-flops and a leather jacket - in the rain. There’s a dotted-line where effortlessly cool crosses over into vagrant. I had crossed it.
I think the worst thing today was losing all confidence in passing wind. I think it’s one of Man’s greatest achievements - separating gas from solid (or in my case today, eggy water) when we fart. Not me, I’d regressed back a few evolutionary steps. Fortunately I had the good sense to get on my porcelain plinth whenever I thought passing wind might be in order. If I get back somewhere close to 100% tomorrow I will spend the first hour showing off my re-discovered skill to colleagues.
Hopefully this is the last potty-mouth post of the year.
My neck still hurts and I feel generally unfit today. This probably isn’t my body playing an elaborate illusion on me, I most likely am genuinely unfit. It’s not like I’ve got high expectations of how fit I need to be. Jog for the bus fit. Carry the shopping home fit. Clean up after the cat fit. That’s about all I need. I don’t plan to scale any buildings any time soon, so what’s the point in achieving the physical condition required to do so.
But, I think I have dropped beneath the level of fitness even I am comfortable with. I think it happened an hour ago when I had to hold down CTRL and scroll at the same time, and unexpectedly let out a wheeze. That’s not a good sign. So, I have a new year’s resolution coming at me from leftfield. Get fit. Or to be exact, get a little bit fitter. Not by much, just enough so that I can browse the internet without letting out noises.
So, exercise options. Join a gym. Fuck that. Just, no. I hate gyms. I hate the people in gyms. I hate the funny words people give the machines that make you sweat in gyms. It’s a non-starter. The only way I want to spend time watching men in lycra sweat is if they are frantically zig-zagging down a back-street, trying to get out of my cross-hairs.
I could join a football team. Genuinely an option. I had quite a pedigree as a Sunday league footballer back in the day when I could hold down a left-back berth and my breakfast. But I fear that would mean having to join a gym and get fit first.
People say that doing exercise makes you feel great afterwards. Like a drug, endorphins or something. And I tell you what they are spot on. I went for a jog a year and a half ago and I am still on a bit of a high. Phew-wee that is still making me feel good after all these months. I might just have a Snickers as a little, belated reward.
Another weekend done. Pretty much without note. Partly because I had the sort of Friday night that casts a shadow over an entire weekend. Work drinks, followed by after-work drinks, followed by drinks that were not related to work at all. But by that point were certainly becoming a bit of an effort.
I know I’ve had a particularly solid night out when I wake up on the couch the next day. Not because I was too drunk to make it the short distance to my bed, but because I’ve clearly had the stupid ambition to watch a film. Friday’s end of night feature-length was particularly ambitious - Doctor Zhivago. 3 hours, I didn’t stand a chance. I was in the land of nod before the kid got the balalaika. I did like waking up to the theme tune on menu-repeat though. I might make it my regular phone alarm. Certainly more soothing than the rasping siren I have now. Life comes as quite a shock on a Monday morning as it is, without it exploding into my ear-lobe at a million decibels.
The side-effect of having slept on the couch is that I now have a bit of a crooked neck. A trapped nerve or something. Or maybe something far more serious that’s been waiting for a moment to announce itself under the cover of coincidence. The good thing is that we can get free massages at work. The bad news is that I absolutely hate them. I’ve only ever had one, and it really bloody hurt. The woman was mental, and I very much doubt she’s changed. And now I’ve got to submit me and my jaunty neck to her.
She’ll do that thing where she bends my back till it makes crackling noises, which are supposed to be good news apparently. They definitely don’t sound like good news. To be fair to the crazy bitch, she did at least ask me to tell her when I had reached my ‘pain threshold’. What business was it of hers where my pain threshold is? I couldn’t help but think that my pain threshold should have no part in our time together. What would happen if I went beyond it? Would I snap? I already felt like crying - was that it? She probably physically drives men to tears in her spare time, happy the woman who’s job is also her hobby.
I probably will feel better after though, but I think that will mostly be utter relief.
Yesterday brought my first ever trip to Guildford. Beaconsfield last year and now Guildford. I really am starting to happen. The taxi driver who drove me from the train station was stupidly proud of the town. He pointed out some local landmarks, castle, cathedral, the M25. He seemed overly paternal about the river. It’s not even their river, it belongs to lots of other towns. Water that passes Guildford on a Monday shimmies it’s curves down to Portsmouth for the Tuesday. The slippery tart.
I’ve never really understood local pride. It only really comes out when you are not actually in the place you are proud of. I’m not in lots of places, and I only seem to have nice words to say about them. The taxi driver seemed to be most proud of the fact that his local Guildford bar does a £3 roast. £3. That has to be some shit roast. A bar near me also does a shit roast. For £16. Which would probably come as quite a consolation to the good people of Guildford. Their Sunday afternoon despair comes £13 cheaper than mine. Maybe I should pop down to Guildford tomorrow and visit the pub. As they are pushing their equally terrible and affordable food around their plates, I can relay the good news that while clearly disgusting, the slop and gristle under their face is an economic victory for the commuter belt. They’ll be shovelling it into their smug faces as soon as I’m gone.
I was glad to get back to the train station, only to find that I was stranded - no trains for 40 minutes. And after that only the ‘slow train’, which is exactly as depressing as it sounds. I thought about going for a walk around the town. Take in a few of the sights that the taxi driver was so positively giddy about. But from the platform I could already see a nightclub called MAMBOS. Block Caps. So that was about all I needed to know. I can’t imagine what went on there last night, but I’m glad I wasn’t part of it.
So I sat and waited for the train. Then I spotted that the platform vending machine had 75p credit, and everything in there was 80p. Ergo, 5p Mars bar. As I sat on the platform, pushing it rapidly into my face, I spared a thought for whoever got to within 5p of the sugary treat before either running out of money, having to jump on the train or expiring on the spot. Poor man. I wished him well as I polished off what was over 90% his chocolate bar.
