Monday 6 April 2009

Weird dream this morning as I meet a girl at a fare that appears to be keen and like me. Unfortunately for leisure she wants to keep having knife fights with me and they cut! Eventually I manage to calm her down when I show her how to use email.

Welcome to Monday. Luckily this is a short four day week and this coming Easter weekend is so welcome, so highly anticipated and desired as an attempt to catch up on some rest, avoid riding trains and get my house in something of an order.

After an uneventful train ride it rolls into Liverpool Street at 8.01 this morning making it one of the quickest in recent memory.

I am really not up for today this morning as I space out and go numb on my trip into work, paying little attention to the people and my surroundings. The worry causing this comes from the broken state of my car and my apparent inability to deal with it due to my lifestyle.

Fortunately I manage to snap out of this lull as the tube becomes a bit more eventful than my past hour of travel. First the entertainment comes in the form of a baby going crazy. Its parents look (and sound) Polish and they do absolutely nothing to calm the fucker down.

As I look across the carriage I see a guy in glasses wearing a stupid hat smiling. He is the only person on the tube smiling and it makes him just look so smug. What has he got to be smiling about? I guess he’s not dragging his arse to a job he hates. A glare and a sneer in his direction later and he calms down, no longer smiling.

Passing through Barbican station I look out at the opposite platform and notice the most amazing looking lady (in my opinion). Sadly it is not Szesze and I do not possess her number. Looking away I then notice another pretty Asian lady housing one of the harshest fringe bobs I have ever seen in my life. It is true Lego hair. She clocks me noticing her and for a split second the ride is uncomfortable (much like the maintenance of her hair).

The true freak show occurs when the tube stops at Kings Cross. As I look out the doors I notice an Asian man on the platform with a fuck up face with a bunched in eye and a scar covering his head. It looks really nasty. And so does he.

My attention to him is somewhat diverted when a tall, manly woman gets on the tube. Upon closer inspection is a man! Other than the harsh face what really gives it away are the hands, the huge big bricklayer hands.

So what is the correct social etiquette towards transvestites? Obviously you shouldn’t stare just because they are different but at the same time there is a distinct element of the attention seeker about them. Likewise it is not good form to display disgust or amusement but also who would want you kissing up to them off the back of such a gimmick?

I guess there is a possibility that this could have been the post op client our team had a Baker Street, the former keyboard in a hoary old seventies dinosaur band that would be mocked in conversation but buttered up in meetings and on the telephone. Tut tut.

I need a holiday. God bless Easter. As I look to the future (a future of riches) I find myself looking online at hotels and weekend breaks in Portmeirion for a The Prisoner holiday. It is not cheap but it is affordable.

At 10AM I call up my insurance breakdown people and arrange for them to pick up my car from my parents. I fear somewhat that this financial knock could put a block to any of the plans suggested in the previous paragraph.

Feeling my face it embarrassing as I discover roots and hairs that I failed to catch in my shave, it was a crap shave. I hope nobody notices the blemishes as much as I do. Once I saw a simpleton guy working in a newsagent near the bus station in Colchester that had left a HUGE bush of hair on his chin after a shave. That vision has always stuck and lingered with me as a lesson of how bad a poor shave can look.

My working week begins sedate but then our accounts consultant arrives and turns everything upside down as apparently there is a sudden urgency/need to conclude Fridays prepayments work.

Looking online at the forum where I originally met the American I happen to read an entry by her how she enjoyed watching Gavin And Stacey and how she is fond of the Smithy character – I bet this is because he reminds her of me (ha ha). Jesus, months ago I told her this was a good show while the thumbsucking prick from Catford told her he hated it and as a result it appeared she stuck to that conclusion. Moving on.

Late in the afternoon I phone home to see how the car is doing. When I speak to the old man he tells me that the guy on the breakdown truck managed to get it going – it was the fucking battery. This is truly a relief, I honestly thought the electrics had gone and it was going to cost big bucks. I thank dad profusely for helping sort it out but he’s cool as about it.

When I tell the room the problem had been the battery they both (both females) laugh at me. I don’t understand the mockery, shit happens. I think they think an alpha male would have spotted the problem a mile off and sorted it Fonz style.

It is perhaps with this degree of immasculination (and saving of money) that I find myself indulging in a heavy bout of online retail therapy this afternoon.

The end of the day does not come too soon and after the usual arduous tube rides from St Johns Wood to Liverpool Street (via Baker Street) my day ends immeasurably better as when I head to my 6.20 train to Norwich I see the gorgeous silhouette of a gorgeous lady in the distance and as I squint for focus I find myself met with a huge smile from her. My morale rises high, hopefully as much as my apparent stock (as suggested by this gesture). You don’t think I read into things too much do you?

Back in Colchester I stop by the parents’ on the way home and thank dad profusely for getting involved in sorting out my car. I leave in the evening still possessing their dinky little Fiesta (that poxy little car with no go) as dad offers to take my car out for a big run tomorrow to test/check the battery properly.

When I finally get home I jump into writing with gusto. On Radio One this evening is 30 Years Of Hip Hop which turns out to be a truly inspired piece of radio programming. The run down of the most important hip hop people (countdown ting) spews up some strange entries (including Obama) but it isn’t guilty of neglecting its roots/origins even if Public Enemy and Run DMC do have ridiculous placing. Additionally the Wu Tang Clan come in at 25 only to be followed by Lil Wayne at 23 which would suggest some people know something I don’t know.

As this show plays out great minds think alike as Iain texts telling me to listen to the station. From here we proceed to compare positioning and predict who will wind up where. Nas in at 13 causes some disappointment but when Afrika Bambaataa turns up at 11 it feels as if the balance is readdressed to some degree.

Tonight’s Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle episode deals with the global financial crisis and addresses amongst other things the end of brand mark businesses such as Woolworths and Zavvi and how the end of these icons from our generation’s lives is subtly alarming offering a sense/threat of vulnerability. It’s all still very funny but not thunderous this week.