Is That The Time?

Jesus! It feels like an eternity since I last posted. I'm getting a bit fed up of writing these entries like periodic postcards to the outside world, but until I get mind, soul and body in order, it'll have to do. The truth is that I've been a little too tired to think about anything other than the most rudimentary blog input. Alas, I'm off until Tuesday and I'm taking myself away for most of that time. Where? Ha! I'm not telling, someone might find me. Work has been the biggest fucker. Two of our number were made redundant and we've moved to another office. The days go by quicker but the work is a few degrees more intense. Having to account for 90% of your working day was the first big shock. I shit ye not, every single thing we do in a day has to be logged and timed. For some jobs it's not a problem, but when you do half a dozen different things, it's a fucking nightmare. I spend about an hour of my day just filling the bastard fucking spreadsheet in, complete with the case numbers of everything that's crossed my desk. I keep looking for the column in the spreadsheet that says "Time spent filling in this useless piece of shit because some over-paid retard at the top of the company gets a fucking hard-on from reading statistics".

Bah! It doesn't help when one of the folk to survive the cull is contributing to the deterioration of my mental hygiene. We all know the concept of the 'man-child'. This is the 'woman-child'. I haven't had to deal with her much before, but she's starting to drive me to distraction. Job-wise, she does one thing. All day. She has done for the past four or five years. This wasn't a problem when we had high volumes of work and everyone was assigned a duty. Now we all need to be able to do each others jobs and while this is no problem for most sentient beings, fat arse has done nothing but wheedle and whine like an irritating five year old. Fuck! If I hear her simpering on about how she misses our much loathed old boss, or how she's fed up of getting emails from the team leader updating us on our new roles, or how she doesn't like the new office, I'll end up snapping and cramming one of her filthy cheese spread white bread sandwiches down her craw with a rolled up Land Certificate!! At the very least I might ask her to experiment with eating with her fucking mouth closed. All I hope is that management and HR realise they got it wrong when they decided to jettison the smartest cookie in the pack and keep this stammering, simple minded fucktard. There, all gone. A little weight off my chest.................. Feels better already. So, that's the state of play in my world. Borderline psychosis, fatigue, anger management issues etc............... What about the rest of you? Has the very notion of going to work made you physically ill in recent weeks? Are you having a wonderful time in a land of milk and honey where nobody cares when you come and go and free gym membership and prostitutes? Are you constantly justifying yourself to an off-hand, shit thick time server who looks at you like you've just vomitted on their lap? Do you get to watch YouTube and I-Player on your company's internet connection and spend your days emailing clips of swearing hamsters and old Rainbow episiodes to workmates? Are you a smug comfort-zoner or are you a down-trodden prole? Answers on the back of the usual beermat. Behold! U2 Are Shit! as are Coldplay, Metallica

A Considered Response

What did you do with your BNP leaflet? Maybe you made it into a paper aeroplane to entertain the kids. Emergency toilet paper perhaps? Saves using the carboard tube. Perhaps you turned it into a birthday card for someone you really fucking despise.

I used mine to light the oven......................

Braw!

p.s. Please note that instructions on what to do when a Labour or Conservative leaflet falls through your door will follow in due course.

From The Mouths Of Muppets

"Oh, I'm so glad he got in! , he really deserves it..." "Did you know the White House was built by black slaves?" "Was it? That's terrible! They should tear it down and build it again!" I kid ye not, that was part of an actual conversation overheard in the dining area at work. Well meaning and kind hearted gibberish, of course, but I wasn't about to get involved in the conversation, so I quickly left the room before I burst into a fit of giggles. It's that whole "Aw, isn't it great?, he's so brave!" bullshit. People acting like the guy's a nine year old paraplegic who's just won his first swimming badge. Wonder what the reaction will be when he gets down to business and displays more of the 'tough bastard' side needed to govern any sizeable country. Maybe I'm not entirely comfortable with politicians unless they register somewhere on the Cunt-O-Meter. ** It'll come..... In other news, I think I may be a tad lovesick. Or something like that. Not for anyone in particular, you understand, but the symptoms have been manifesting themselves ever more clearly for the past month or two. That inescapable feeling that you're spending too much time on your own and that something vast and important is missing from your existence. Or maybe I just need to buy more porn............. ("~) I believe it's what Kinky Friedman describes as 'Spiritual Horniness'. Winter Warmer No4

Bauchredner by Gastr Del Sol, from the Camoufleur album

**paragraph edited.

It's Not Idiot Proof Yet................

.........and I'm back up and running again after what seemed like an eternity without internet access beyond my fathers laptop and a bit of clandestine surfing at work. At least I've stopped falling asleep on the couch. I think the passive nature of watching TV does it to me, whereas the internet................well, it's my Benzedrine..........

As is the case with any internet problems, the biggest hassle is the sketchy phone conversation with a bored sounding IT bod. The first guy I got was vagueness personified, which was a perfect compliment to my own rather absent manner. The following night I got better results, but only after driving the chap on the end of the line to the verge of hysterics with my seeming inability to comprehend simple concepts like having the modem on to enable him to carry out a test on the connection. I mean, I thought it all worked by magic or something.....................

After having walked my father through the mind bending concept of copy/paste over the phone a few days earlier, I can only sympathise and hope he doesn't give up on the rest of humanity.

Automatic Evil

To me, the sign of a civilised workplace is the provision of a kettle, milk, sugar, coffee and teabags. In a day and age when the morning and afternoon break, certainly in office culture, is routinely ignored, going to make a cuppa is as close as you get to punctuating a long and tedious day.

Alas, this is no longer the case where I work. The kettle, teabags and coffee have been confiscated and a hulking great big machine has been installed. Yes, one of those rotten shit heaps that dispenses watery tea, retch inducing hot chocolate and a dozen varieties of coffee, all of which taste roughly the same and all of which scour the lining from yr stomach. The only thing remotely drinkable was the chicken soup, which they proceeded to remove and replace with 'hot water'. Aye! Great fucking idea! It's my belief that the people who run the company probably think we all got down on our knees and prayed to the machine like it was a God when it was fitted.

"Oh great mechanical dispenser of rancid hot beverages, hear our prayers and piss out gallon after gallon of toxic smelling effluent for us, so that we may spend a little less time in the kitchen making tea and coffee, and a little more time fucking about on the internet while the boss isn't looking."

Buncha useless bangers!

"Oh!, but it's still free!" they'll exclaim. I should ruddy hope so! Can you imagine if they actually tried to charge you for the pleasure of feeling slightly ill after half a cup of what they amusingly refer to as 'Choco-milk'? If theres chocolate or milk in it, I sure as hell didn't taste it...........

In the next six months this machine will:

1)Make someone violently ill with one of it's brews

2)Malfunction catastrophically

3) Gather dust in the corner of the kitchen like an unwanted wedding gift.

I'm bringing in a thermos until they see sense and bring back the fucking kettle.

Grilled Pizza

Possibly the least accurate statement ever made.

Yes, tonight I grilled a pizza. It tasted like shit, as you might imagine. It was not intentional, but nonetheless it must rank as a first for me, considering my widely respected aptitude for heating up food.

Next week I shall be deep frying a Ceaser Salad, par-boiling some macaroni cheese and oven baking Tomato Soup.