The Art Of Hate, The Joy Of Despair

When life feels like one long hangover anyway, you tend to stop bothering about how much you drink.

How anyone works in a call centre I will never quite know. It's a brutal, joyless, mindlessly repetitive job that gives no satisfaction whatsoever. For every person who tells you you're a wonderful human being, there are a dozen graceless, hateful bastards calling you a lying, vindictive, unco-operative, incompetent cunt. They aren't interested in the fact the new system is badly implemented, barely tested rubbish. They don't care that garbage in means garbage out. Simply put, it's your fault and you're filth on a stick.

Not that I know from personal experience, and not that I work as a call centre agent, but God help me, working in an environment of constantly raised voices creates it's own stress by proxy. I do outbound chaser calls (pussy work!), and going on the off call confidences of my colleagues, I hope it remains that way for as long as I'm trapped on the 4th floor. I need their hell like I need a 2nd arsehole.

Just some of the chancers you have to fend off:

Solicitors who think a 1988 Sharp fax machine will be sufficient to send large amounts of documentation to ANYONE!. Then complain like the retarded public schoolboy tossers they are when ignorant fools such as ourselves cannot accept a legal document that has several pages missing or distorted and the Mortgagor names ommitted. N.B. Solicitors who cannot spell are an interesting sideshow, but are easily humiliated into compliance.

Or how about the modern day Del Boy twats from the branches who tell the customers they will have their funds in five minutes flat, leading to the most almighty clusterfucks at our end, as we chase the ever fading shadows of prior lenders, guarantors, 3rd parties, 3rd party solicitors, Alistair Darling and the Fucking President of Fucking Ethiopia. Some people do need money in insanely tight time limits, but for the most part, I theorise that someone out there just wants to get their monthly bonus in.

Finally we have the customer. The rube, the dupe, the fool, and possibly the hardest to deal with as you do actually feel for them. Being led up the garden path by a solicitor & a business manager can't be much fun, so it's lucky there's a call centre somewhere in Jockoland for them to call up and vent their frustrations at. After all, we're not human beings and it doesn't really matter, does it?

Does it?

Nah, 'course not.......

How To Disappear Completely

None of you will be surprised to know that I both crave attention and like nothing more than being left alone. It's a real fucker, I tell thee. Oddly enough, I generally tend to have my requests for peace and quiet granted to me. In fact I rarely have to ask, which is nice..... It's a bit harder when I want everyone to look my way, so I suppose that's why I blog. Then I can combine the two disciplines. I can act the arse to a small group of people AND be left in peace to listen to music, tend to my plants, wash the dishes and play old Spectrum games on my PC.

Anyway, it came to my notice recently that the Inland Revenue have no idea that I'm working.

Woohoo!

Recently, the company I worked for was taken over* and since the tax bods were doing a wee audit on me anyway with regard to unpaid taxes (easy Duff, I'm still PAYE, I won't be sharing a cell with Lester Pigot and Ken Dodd just yet), it came to their notice that I was no longer working for Solicitor 'X' and for whatever reason, my new employers hadn't updated them on the chaos that they were about to unleash. You do realise it would have been months or years before they caught up with me had my dear old Ma not been residing at my previous address........

This leads me to my other disappearing act. Over the past few weeks, the whole Glasgow operation has been having it's email/operating systems changed over to those used by the new company. Quite apart from realising that we've actually gone back to the dark ages with regard to how Windows works (I swear, my old Commodore 64 was more user friendly), they've also been kind enough to fuck up my email so that all emails sent to the Glasgow offices in general avoid me, and me alone. 'Im also unable get in touch with anyone else, unless they happen to know my new email address. To all intents and purposes, I might as well not exist.........

So, there you have it, I'm 'The Man With No Name', 'The Outlaw', 'The Fugitive', 'The Black Rider'.............I shall bring the company to it's knees from within! The Silent Assasin will strike without mercy!

..........as long as it doesn't affect my holiday allocation of course.........

*Technically speaking, it was 'merged', but then technically speaking Guido Fawkes is a journalist.........

Spinny wind vane thingy at North Berwick.

Body Language Was Never My Strong Suit

'The Bedouin' gets a lick of paint. I wanted him to hire me as his cabin boy, but he just gave me a funny look and threatened to call the police.

You know that moment? The one where you suddenly realise the person you're talking to has glazed over and is no longer listening to a word you're saying.........

I do that a dozen times a day. Maybe it's because I'm not interested in what anyones got to say. That could be it. I could just be a rude and supercillious cunt. I don't know, people are fucking boring, they bang on relentlessly, humourlessly, they talk unbidden about things you couldn't possibly care about, and they do it at gratuitous fucking length. Do I do it? Hell, sure I do, but you see, I have this awesome weapon in my armoury which makes me superior. heavens, you dear reader might have this ability too, for it is by no means unique to me. It's called self awareness. I know when I've gone off the deep end, when I'm heading into those dark woods of incoherence, I see the dimming of the lights, the barely visible nods as my victim tries to make it obvious they'd rather eat their own entrails than hear any more, but at the same time trying not to make it too obvious so they don't offend me. I see the signs and I stop. In fact, if you completely fucking ignore me, I stop even quicker , I check myself and realise that yes, nobody gives a damn. You get good at it after a while and learn the art of keeping it short and sweet.

Sadly, the two people I sit with have no such ability. The guy opposite me, whilst he's a nice enough chap, and sometimes quite funny, seems to think I'm interested in what the increasingly paranoid mouth breathers on the Follow Follow Rangers Fan Forum have to say. I couldn't give a flying fuck for the opinions of the average Partick Thistle fan, so why in the name of all that's Holy does he think I care about the delusional, petty rantings of Big Shuggy McPopehater from Larkhall? Answers on a postcard.

The other menace sits next to me, and again she's actually alright in many ways, but fuck me!, once she warms to her subject, there is absolutely no fucking stopping her. Just when you think it's come to an end, she starts up again. Finally, you think you've ridden it out, but no, theres more. Sometimes it feels like you have to physically leave the desk to stop her in her tracks. I deserve all I get I suppose, I engage her in conversation sometimes and nobody should have any sympathy for me in those situations............It's not always like that though and many's the time it's taken me the best part of two minutes to escape the gravitational pull of my desk, just so I don't have to listen to her prattling, usually in an exaggerated fashion that resembles someone doing a very laboured and not terribly funny stand up routine.

The thing I wonder is why they don't read the signals. Is it just that they have no knowledge of what a very bored man looks like? Is it deliberate? Are they just trying to drive me mad? If so, then that's alright, because I'm a man half way to fucking delirium anyway, one more little shove won't do any harm. It's the other option that scares me.. If neither of them know that zero eye contact, grunted responses and veiled hints that they might be talking about something I couldn't give two fucks about don't work, then frankly, I might as well run bollock naked through the office, photocopy my balls and staple the results to the department managers forehead for all the difference it'll make.

Sorry, you were saying..................?

Haw Pal! I Hope Yer Next Shite's A Hedgehog

On the whole I don't have a huge problem with the human race. A frustrating bunch, yes, but in the words of Douglas Adams, 'Mostly Harmless'. Of course, there are exceptions and I bumped into one today.

It happened on the way back from the football. I crossed a road and as I reached the other side, some old lad and his dogs were walking down to the same bit of pavement as me. I stepped onto the pavement and he halted just to my left. I murmured an apology, as you do when you think you've got in someones way slightly. As I walked off, he called out at me.

"Is it raining?"

It was raining, but I thought nothing of it. Again he called out.

"Aye,it's hard tae see in the rain wi glasses on, i'nt it?"

I looked round at him in askance then continued walking. He was an old jake in a cap and wearing tinted glasses. The irony of his words weren't lost on me. Just before he turned up another street he called out something crude about the umbrella I was carrying, something about a 'Dolly Brolly'. Maybe he was jealous of it, I don't know...........

What got me was that there was absolutely no call for the outburst. I had done nothing more than walk past the stupid old cunt, but there he is, haranguing me in the street. See, that's when I find the human race intolerable. I can't stand bad manners, intentional rudeness. Sure, people can do things that annoy you, but most of the time it's unintentional, most of us understand this issue and simply mutter a few oaths under our breaths and get on with it. Rest assured though, there are always pricks like the 'gent' I encountered today who act like aggressive little fuckers at the slightest provocation, regardless of what age they are.

Round 'em up and send 'em off for 're-programming'...............

Remember, Remember.............To Sellotape Your Letterbox Shut

Let's face it, when it comes to lobbing exploding things about, the human race really doesn't need much in the way of an excuse. Why the fuck do you think we like going to war? Why the fuck did they invent the nuclear bomb?

We like things that go BANG!! It's that simple

Guy Fawkes is just such an excuse, and along with New Year (ask a Dutch friend...) it's the pinnacle of our race's achievements with regard to making a fucking racket and scaring pensioners and household pets. I must say, I do like fireworks, but I have to confess that I find the idea of them being so easy to buy slightly disturbing. The average back yard fireworks show is a rather dreary affair all told. Dad buys about thirty quids worth of cheapo fireworks, sets them off and then everyone wanders back inside out of the cold. Pure anti-climax. Take it from one who, as a kid, saw one too many rockets tip over and fly into the neighbours pot plants or had to yawn through yet another malfunctioning Catherine Wheel as my Dad tried set off a Roman Candle without giving himself third degree burns. (I think I covered all this last year now I think of it..........)

Of course, the feral kids and wee hardnuts get to run riot in the backstreets with them. Bangers seem to be the weapon of choice. Easy to throw and loud as fuck. If acting like an obnoxious prick for most of the year doesn't quite do it for you, Guy Fawkes is a rare treat, as you can then upgrade yourself briefly to 'Evil Little Cunt' status.

Anyway, have a nice night and hope you enjoyed the whizzbangs. Me, I'm off to see if my flat is still there.............

No!! Not Me House!!!

Not the most pleasing sight to meet my eyes as I walked back from the shops the other day. Fire engines. A ruddy squad of them, and more concerning to this new home-owner, a dirty big plume of smoke rising into the air. My first thought was "Fuck! What have I left on?".

Nothing as it turns out. There's a row of old council flats behind the house which have been boarded up for quite some time, waiting on the last tenant to move out (obviously hanging on for something a bit more salubrious) They're empty now, but it seems to have been a green light for some local cheeky chappies to find a way in and torch the place. Ah yes, the local wildlife........

Had no problems as such yet, though someone did decide to give the piece of board covering the broken pane on the entry door a good booting last night. Obviously took offence to someone covering up their previous handiwork.

Here I am making out I live in Beirut or something.....

I've got one of these things up now. Cheers to Clairwil for bringing it to my attention. Not quite sure what it's for (I'm not the only one), but I'm sure it'll come in handy.

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band had many mad moods. Too many actually. I think in the world of seventies rock they were seen as a great live band, but ultimately, neither fish nor fowl in a musical sense. Which is a shame, because they made some jaw dropping recordings, if maybe not all on the same album...........Anyway, these clips should give you an idea of how they could go from deranged prog rock to Vaudville to cheesy pop to grinding blues rock and back again. They also had a theatricality that maybe only Marilyn Manson has topped and the rabid looking Harvey whose style was a definite influence on a young John Lydon. Harvey died in 1982 and the remnants of the band were sent to serve their time in 80's stadium rock supergroups before returning to reform the band. I've not bothered to bend an ear. I hear they're not bad at all, but without Alex, it's just another band.

I've Got God In My Earpiece And He Sounds Like Private Fraser

via Seven Days

Just back from the football and I've suddenly remembered one of the reasons I'd stopped going. It was like having Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets behind me. Grizzling, moany faced old cunts.............

They were actually correct in a few of their observations, but their unrelenting dourness had me wishing I'd brought a gun with me.

I shouldn't moan, it only cost me a fiver......

'Roadshow'

When I were a lad, a 'Roadshow' was a live broadcast on Radio 1, usually from some scrutty seaside town in the pissing rain, hosted by the likes of Bruno Brookes and Liz Kershaw, featuring top tunes from the Hit Parade and Dave Lee Travis scaring children with his facial hair. Or something. To top it all off, you'd have an array of the days biggest pop stars (and Pete Burns) lip synching along to their latest hits. Peerlessly naff, and as popular as a public hanging. The product of a more innocent age.

Now it would seem that the term 'Roadshow' has been appropriated for altogether darker purposes. Basically a 'Roadshow' in business terms is a couple of middle management types with a big screen, a laptop, a microphone and a Powerpoint Presentation, trying gamely to generate some excitement amongst their employees about the company's new 'three year plan' and their projected profits. The half hearted gags, the the half arsed 'Pre-Roadshow' music, the utterly meaningless glossy pamphlets, the hour of my life I'd have sooner spent drilling holes in my head.................

Anyway, some suggestions for improving the 'Roadshow' product;

Dry ice.

Strippers (male & female if you want)

Free bar

Babyshambles live performance

I think it's a winner.

That wasn't the best of it. Apparently the company have a commitment to the environment. I was instructed to go to and from the venue for the 'Roadshow' via a specially chartered bus, even though said venue is actually only five minutes walk from my office. I was quite happy to oblige as it meant I returned to the office a good half hour later than I would have if I'd just walked.

Nice to see my Carbon Footprint is as big as ever

One Mustn't Mock The Afflicted.......

Danny Dyer is a twat and this is a genius piss take. All hail!!

'Avin It!!

Thieving Fuckers!

Bjork at Connect festival, Sunday Night

Well, it had to happen sometime............

I've had my wallet nicked. I was in Lidl, I'd just payed for my messages and was transfering a few things to my satchel at the counter behind the checkout. Rather than putting my wallet back in my jacket pocket, I've foolishly and left it out on the counter and gone without it. An uncharacteristic mistake, I have to state. I made the forlorn journey back after getting about five minutes up the road and realising I was a bit light in the pocket department. As I had surmised, nobody had handed it in, but someone had almost certainly nicked it. All that was in it was a few quid in loose change, a national insurance card, a bank card that the thief will never be able to use (especially now that it's been cancelled) and various other bits of useless shite.

Cheers mate. I know who you are. You were the trackie wearing dick who made me wait in the queue while you went for something you'd forgotten, you were the wee dobber who was transferring messages to your rucksack as I walked out of the shop and couldn't have helped but notice that fat looking brown leather pouch laying there unattended. You were the cagey looking fucker who suddenly started fumbling for gears on your bike as you came past me as I returned to the shop between five and ten minutes later in the mistaken belief that someone would have had the decency to hand it to one of the staff.

If it was indeed Shellsuit Bob who had away with my wallet, I truly hope he gets raped by his bird with a 12 inch steel dong, or maybe his pet doberman bites his balls off in the night. There are other possibilities, but the circumstantial evidence points one way, and at this moment in time, that's good enough for me...............Guilty!

Apart from that I'm fine. How's everyone else?

For Lism. The Hold Steady say Howdy!

I Demand Silence!!! ...........and maybe a bit of swearing

According to this article (via Great She Elephant), background noise accounts for a few thousand heart attack fatalities each year. Now, I would stop short of saying that unwanted noise is any kind of danger to body and soul, but I think I understand the concept.

There are few things I loath more in life than getting up in the morning and having to listen to the ruddy radio. Normally I breakfast on my own and all is silent, all is golden and I can read whatever happens to be lying on the table (old Viz annuals usually) as I eat my Cornflakes and contemplate the grim road ahead. It's one of those moments that Bukowski talks about in 'It's Ours'. It is indeed mine. Or it was. This morning the folks were buzzing about prior to to leaving on holiday and had just colonised the kitchen. They seem unable to exist without the chatter of radio at any time in their lives, morning being no exception........

It's everywhere. In the car, in their bedroom 24 hrs a day, in the kitchen........Do they never crave a bit of 'Hear a pin drop' silence?

To be honest, I've been a mass of seething rage (easy ladies....) for the past few days. The notion that a fine, relaxing weekend does you a power of good is just that, a notion. No sooner do you hit the working week and all the resentment, impatience, and general foul temper come rolling back over you. As a result I have developed a distinct antipathy towards the following 'groups'

Scotland Rugby fans - How many people go and watch rugby in Scotland? Go on, guess........Club rugger, both pro and amateur...........Let's just say they'd fill but a small corner of Murrayfield. Yet the cunts turn up in their fucking masses to go and watch a bunch of fat bastards chase an egg around a field.......... There I am in Queen St Station staring at an almighty queue to get on the train, before being deprived of a seat by a bunch of wanks in kilts, Saltires and Lion Rampants. Tory voting bell-ends to a man and woman too............let's just say the bit where my bottle of Coke detonated on me was just about the last straw and all I wanted to do was wipe my sticky hands on one of their neatly ironed, newly washed rugger tops. I suggest they all charter some buses next time and leave public transport to people who have a good reason to be going where they're going. At least I would have been entertained by football fans, maybe even threatened or offered a slug of someones Red Square. Anything is preferable to such well mannered and civilised nuisances.

Oh, and before anyone gets any ideas, the Tartan Army can fuck off too.

Private Schools - Oh lordy me! I had a decent day on Saturday all told. North Berwick was lovely and sunny, I got some peace and quiet for a few hours before subjecting myself to the hell ride back to Glasgow. Sunday was good too. Long lie, some speedway and ready for Monday. I made the wrong decision on Monday morning though. Instead of taking the back route down to Great Western Road, I made my way down Belmont St, past 'The' Glasgow Academy. Bad move, for the jumped up little bastards were back from the summer break. Not the kids you understand, it's hardly their fault. No, I mean the parents. What a bunch of arrogant, fuckwitted arseholes. Take for instance the vehicles these absurd creatures turn up in. Bentleys, BMW's, Mercs, Lexuses (or is that Lexi?), not to mention the ubiquitous Chelsea Tractors. Just making the place look untidy I'm afraid, as well as making it absolutely fucking impossible for anyone who lives in the area to get to work by car. Hard to believe, but they're building an extension to the school. Any chance of building a fucking turning area on school grounds too? To be fair, a fair amount of these kids get a chartered bus, or take the underground, but you can still rely on a few hundred wankers to persist in running the kids to the school gate and personally offloading their gear/kissing them goodbye/etc, causing the worlds most unnecessary tailback.

Traffic Wardens - A new standard has been set in traffic control pedantry. My old man got slapped with a fifty quid fine for...........wait for it..................Parking in his own street!!!! I live in a cul-de-dac and it's essentially a non permit residents parking zone. The problem is that some people are allowed to pass their tests without having learned the art of parking properly (Some people pass their tests without knowing how to turn across traffic for heavens sakes) and it ends up with them doing things like parking on street corners, usually with the car a good four feet out into the traffic and making life difficult for pedestrians trying to cross roads. The result is the rather drastic manoeuvre of painting double yellows a good 9 feet into various side streets. Anyway, my dad made the mistake of having half his car on these lines, despite it being well inside the street and nowhere near being an obstacle to pedestrians. I don't know, is it a perverse thing with Traffic Wardens? Is it the fear that if they turn a blind eye and use some common sense from time to time, their transgression might be spotted by some 'all seeing eye' at Glasgow City Council and losing them a days wages? I know it's a shite job, but surely this sort of thing needs a lighter touch. It's not exactly someone chancing it in the city centre while they nip into the newsie for fags and a paper...........

You'll all be saddened but not surprised to hear that my dad did the 'sensible thing' and coughed up. I feel sure he could have made a massive racket about this and got a few thousand Daily Mail readers to march to his beat, though I'm sure the thought would appall him.

Jesus! A right little bundle of bad karma this week, aren't I?

Ed Is Dead

Can't believe the poor sap who sits opposite me at work. he seems to have been sucked into being nominated as department rep, yet I've never seen someone so happy to put themselves forward for punnishment. The company I work for is in the middle of a 'merger' as it's being euphemistically referred to and his duties will consist of going to some meetings in which our new overlords go through the motions of liasing with the workforce and listening to our concerns. He reckons it'll look good on his cv, and he may be correct. Thing is, I have doubts about just how much attention companies pay to cv's when they hire people. I think theres an experiment in there......Submit a cv to various companies in which you claim in the 'personal info' section to be sixteen feet tall, possess x-ray vision, speak all known languages and possess the ability to wipe out humanity on a whim. Yes, you may be referred to the psychiatric panel by 95% of the employers you contact, but I'm also sure that there would be someone who would be more than happy to entertain you.

"Well, maybe he gives a good interview......."

On an entirely unrelated note, I was thinking the other day, "who would be my 'holy trinity' of rock'n'roll?" It's a dumb thing to think about, yet it kept me ruminating for most of the walk home yesterday. For me, Brian Wilson would be one element, Iggy Pop another........

Can anyone suggest the final element of this rather perverse 'Godhead'?

Does anyone have their own trio of pop culture genius? I'd be interested to know just how many others out there occupy their time with such useless thoughts.

Cheers!

Guitar Shop Man

Evenin'

You'll have to forgive me, I've been trawling the depths of Councillor Terry 'Gumby' Kelly's blog and haven't been able to withdraw myself to attend to my own blogging duties. I think I'm becoming obsessed.....

Ok, now I'm here......

New guitar tonight. It was cheap, it was from Victor Morris, and the long hair that flogging it to me commented on how great it's pickups were.......

Lord almighty, it was sixty quid, did he think I was a moron? Don't answer that, of course he did. From the moment I walked in he had me down as the sort of gonk who wouldn't know a Fender from a Gibson. he was wrong of course, I found out the difference just last week, so there..................

Joking aside, I got into the very worst guitar shop situation possible. Instead of going for the whole "yeah yeah, whatever, I know it's a hunk of shit, I just want something that'll stay in tune" gambit, I allowed him to tune the fecker up for me, plug it in and let me play it in the shop.

Rule One Of Buying A Cheap Guitar: Just buy it, don't get into a situation where trainee Joe Satriani's can wank away for thirty seconds, then pass the ruddy thing to you with that "Ok, let's see what you can do" look on their face. There is a perfectly good reason why the frustrated bastards work for minimum wage selling leccy banjos. They lack any imagination and believe that their blues rock band, probably called something like 'Foxglove' are only one killer song away from being signed.

Anyway, the bugger looked at me in disbelief when I told him I'd done a few acoustic gigs and wanted to get back to playing electric. The reason for this was the fact that when he passed the guitar to me, I didn't pull out the requisite rock licks or at the very least play Smoke On The Water. Nope, I just fumbled a few chords, figured the thing worked ok and decided to buy it. I just don't believe he thought I had ever picked up a guitar before.

It's my fault, it's how I come across to people. I can bullshit my way through things I'm almost alien to, yet I can't convince some dork in a guitar shop that I do actually know what way up to hold a guitar.

I should of course have taken the approach I applied the last time I bought a guitar -

Assistant: Aye, it a nice guitar, well made, good sou....

Me: I'm just after something cheap to make a bit of noise on

Assistant: Do you want to try it?

Me: No

I got sucked in this time. Be forewarned, guitar shop blokes are failures, they will try anything to make you feel small and stupid.

The New Toy. Lovely........