The Dark Hearted Soul Of the Average Office Drone

Our line manager got made redundant. We celebrated. It was wrong on too many levels to count, but somehow none of us could help it. Like spiteful school children, we quietly sneered, jeered and mocked amongst each other. I am not proud. That said, I won't miss his foul breath, arrogant offhand manner, contradictory bullshit and creepy wee shell-games. So, first day of summer or what? Today had that 'feel', that scent that says summer is just around the corner, with it's mandatory six days of nice weather and endless days of humid, damp misery. I feel better already! Unlike my old Grandpa. He's 94 you know!! He's also in hospital with a sore foot. They want to get antibiotics into him via a drip, then see how he does. Mum mentioned something about MRSA, which obviously raised an eyebrow on my part. If 'Iron Baws' Jimmy Morrison can contract that sort of thing, then nobody is safe.............. Tonight's visit was fairly entertaining though, just as long as you kept him off his usual conversational trajectory. He does a fairly good Private Fraser impersonation, and it's a constant battle to keep him from getting too bloody morose. Gentle mockery and a hearty dismissal of his ruminations seems to get the best out in him, as he realises you aren't going to wear an hour of his "The world is about to end!" chuntering. We also got his story about how the humble tomato saved him from the draft during the war. He grew them you see, and the government regarded them as an important part of the British diet. So important that the Jimster spent '39 to '45 fighting the jolly hun by providing ripe, juicy toms to the populace. I did point out that had he been conscripted and survived the war, it would have constituted a different reality and different circumstances. It was possible that neither myself or my brother would have been born and we wouldn't be having this particular conversation. My brothers girlfriend asked if Jimmy would still be in hospital with a sore foot on this alternate timeline. I concluded that yes, he would still be in hospital with a sore foot, but nobody would be there to visit him.................... New York Dolls - Trash Beautiful archive footage.............

I Like Birds

Strange day. As one who seems to suffer three day hangovers these days, I fully expected to wake up this morning and feel that familiar fuzziness hanging about from Thursday night. It wasn't, but I still spent the day contemplating my navel for some reason or other. It's not like the weather was bad or anything, but I really need to shake off the whole winter hibernation mode I'm in and get my lardy arse out the door. Even if it is just to go to Lidl for a pint of milk.......

Anyway, best things about today........ Watching a couple of small birds (blue tits I think) poking about in the tree in the front garden of my parents house. It looked like they were sizing it up for nesting purposes, but it's a little small just now. Maybe give it a couple of years.

Also saw the worlds scabbiest magpie. It looked like it had been in the wars, it's tail feathers all tattered, it's white plummage looking rather grey and dirty. If theres one thing you can say about magpies, it's that they're always very well turned out. Not sure what the story was with this one, but it was looking distinctly second hand and off it's game.

Then it was off up to Stobhill to see Grandpa. Bumped into my cousin while I was there and we sat with old Jim while he regaled us with the story of how the humble tomato prevented him from being called up to fight Hitler and how we're all going to die in a huge mushroom cloud soon. He's probably right too. Put me in a right cheery mood, I can tell you................

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band version of an old Jaques Brel ditty called 'au Suivant'. Or 'Next' for short.

A Sea Of Shrunken Yellow Men Crawling Out Their Cots And Calling For Mother

My Grandpa's in hospital. Nothing too bad, just a chest infection, anemia, polyps in the fundament.......

he's survived worse...........

Hospitals put the fear of God in me folks, I don't mind admitting that. It doesn't matter if it's some Victorian rabbit warren or some ritzy new death hole, I always leave feeling vaguely unwell and with the desire never to return.

I think it's the smell, the sick, 40 watt lighting, the bedlam like atmosphere......

I have no problem with going to see old Jimmy. He's deaf as a post and lives in a world of his own. My type of guy basically. I also think it's why his surroundings don't bother him too much.

It's a bummer going on family visits though. My mum sits at his bedside and clucks around him a bit while the rest of us talk amongst ourselves. He's used to it I think, between his late wife, his daughter in law and my mum, it's generally all he's known and he seems comfy with it. Still, I'd actually prefer to go on my own, then we can just sit and talk about football and all the stuff that's been going round in both our heads that day................(consults bus timetable for Springburn)

The geriatric ward at Stobhill is like the seventh circle of hell, two long lines of beds full of the confused and the dying. In the case of the manic old lad with the unlit fag in his mouth it's probably both. The fag was still in his gob when we left an hour later, still up in his bed gumming away, no words, just noises, the ability to articulate long gone. Another shouts a name repeatedly, maybe he's still swimming in the fog of the morphine. He could be calling anyone, but the name is female................You join the dots as you wish.

Grandpa's bed is at the bottom end of the ward. He lies across from a couple of sprightly looking lads with newspapers and a TV set. They're the short-termers, the tourists. They'll be out again in a week. Maybe it's true what they say about being nearer the door.............

As we walk out, an old gent smiles at me from one of the office like side rooms. I don't react quickly enough to wave at him or smile back, just a kind of impromptu grimace of acknowledgement before he melts back into the ward behind me. I silently wish him better health as I leave.

They provide handwash before you enter the ward. I leave wondering if theres anything attached to the wall that might aid the process of alleviating the feelings of grimness that cling to me as I leave.