Have just spent a happy fifteen minutes checking my email and responding to a few received. Of late my email account has become spotted by the evil forces of spam email and the thing has become riddled with adverts. When I open it up each day, I’m lucky to have one or two emails from legitimate acquaintances and unlucky to have about fifteen offering me fit birds in my area, amazing share tips, fake rolexes (rolexi?) and an enlarged cock. Needless to say none of these items interest me (and I don’t need any help with the last, thanks) and I wonder if these people have any kind of success rate at all.

These days in a bid to get through spam filters, the emails come from realistic names. So you get emails from Rogerio Davies, and Stephanie Sambatini. I’m not sure whether these addresses lead back to anything, but recently in a new bid towards stress relief I have begun replying. “Why don’t you kill yourself, you horrible bitch” went to Stephanie, while Rogerio received the more succinct “fuk off Rogerio”. Kirsty, who is promising me daily that her breasts are firm and ripe and worth paying £1 a minute to phone her for a chat was told that “her tits will fall off if she keeps waving them about”.

Partly, I live in fear that these hostile return emails will end up with them sending me even more, but then actually I’m not too bothered. I’ve pretty much accepted I’m going to have to change my email address soon and in the meantime I mean to have fun by abusing as many people as possible.

I’ve not put a post up on Bolo yet, but I thought this had to be shared……..

http://www.swansea-res.org.uk/tv_advert.html

Watch the advert… Personally I think it’s one of the greatest ads I’ve seen, almost as good as the original Sony one, but with much tastier fruit items. However, now the gays from Swansea Village are complaining about a bit of pulp messing up their streets?! Click on the petition at the bottom of the page to also find out that the local old people are now afraid to leave their houses, just in case there’s still some fruit hanging about in the air that hasn’t come down yet… Big up Tango for your fruity devastation tactics

Here’s a vaguely sinister photo that I took at Castlerigg stone circle.

To be honest, I was just seeing if I was capable of the complex activity of uploading files…

It seems that the South Africans in a rare break from violence, rugby and cricket have invented a new sport which hopefully (if doubtfully) will appear over here. Good work, crazy train running youngsters.

Beer-weary soul
Slumped
On the G-Town train

Sad songs playing in my head
While I’m walking home alone

Off to the 02 festival today which should surely fill the music gap quite nicely. Finally a chance to see world-wearied dance collective gods, Massive Attack, vibe out on the sounds of Gnarls Barkley and generally chill it out in the wide open, plebean soaked spaces of Hyde Park. Here’s to sun, a light breeze, the successful smuggling of a few cans in and wide eyed music soaked bliss.

Reading a report saying that cannabis is the drug of choice for young disadvantaged white females. Strange feeling and vision of a load of girls poorly dressed, kitted out in Burberry, with the Reebok Classic, lycra, slicked back hair look. Girls smoking on weed like they used to smoke on cigarettes. Watching your weight while you watch Hollyoaks.

Shit man, what’s wrong with my generation? All hooked on dreams of clear skin, gourmet food and fifteen minute MTV videos. Every girl looks like a star and every man like Alf Garnett’s bastard nephew. Look at those pretty lips, man, did they use to glitter like that? Could they move like that? What’s the etiquette here?

Staying late in the office
Is the chosen route for those with reports to write.
Attending lectures
May well get you noticed by the right people.
Taking on a lot of pressure
Will get you promoted at dizzying speed.
While going home for tea
With a bag full of dreams
And staying up late every night
May well get you fired.

Home alone again. Too many memories of this journey home, clouding it up now. Confusing the way. Too many pots of foul tasting barley, smacked down with big grin. Joky asides to present company, old anecdotes and looking around at the people, all the people in the carriage tonight.

Morning time. Pangs of guilt and a waft of sick. I’m on my sofa. It’s 9.30am on a work day morning. My brain painfully begins to whirr at the immediate repurcussions of this information. I’ve got a phone call to make. Before that though, lets get to grips with the guilt and the sick. The latter appears to be all around the base of the sofa and also peppers the white throw that was inspirationally placed just a few weeks ago. Every cloud. Right, the sick is checked and the cleaning solution straightforward on the wooden floor.

Now – the guilt. It’s not work. It will have something to do with a woman, but that’s not the main event. A friend is over from blighty and, him having arrived yesterday, we completed the obligatory heavy night out at the earliest possible window of opportunity. Lager, wine and whiskey all played an essential role in our total and utter ascent into oblivion. Until 1am memory implies that we had a pretty splendid night out, with just the suggestion of a few trampled toes along the way. Past that point though, it’s a mystery. What was the last place ? did we pay our bill ? did I see my mate home, or even try and point him in the right direction ? Ah – there’s the source of the guilt. I can’t remember doing so and my instinct tells me that means no.

An hour passes. The sick is mopped. The woman’s scorn is manifesting nicely. The phone call has been carried out with aplomb. Time to find out about my foreign-street-wandering visitor…..One phone call later and the worst is realised – he got mugged on the way back to his hotel last night. Fuck. Kept hold of his wallet though and elbowed some thoroughly deserving bastard in the face to boot. The jacket, sunglasses and hotel key will be refunded by a wise man’s travel insurance. The guilt didn’t cost a penny, but I wish it would leave me alone and stop making me swear out loud on my own. Oh well, as any woman would only be too quick to tell me – I’ve only got myslef to blame. Will that ensure my good behaviour from now until the end though ? The odds are not good.

Actually scratch that, maybe on a trip to Brighton you don’t need a classic convertible. You probably need a car that does not fire a bolt off its alternator somewhere on the way down, breaking down teasingly close to the city, in the middle of a 4 lane A-road, where you have to push the car to the side, getting abused by passing chavs and wheeled warriors – the type of people whose confidence grows while they are in their car and safely passing you in seconds at 50mph, so that they feel entitled, no compelled, to shout an obscenity, which you only catch the first syllable of as by then they’re gone down the road. Praise be for the AA and the benefits of a chilled disposition, when dealing with these kind of crises, but the upshot is that the trip to Brighton remains unfulfilled and must be reattempted soon, car with roof or no roof.

M25 cruising on a Sunday, lanes overpopulated with weekend day trippers, sun seekers and hedonists, out snatching at the last chance of fun before the week begins again. Sun beating down on the car, a special detail of this trip: A mk 1 Golf GTI convertible, essential because, well if you are going to Brighton you need a classic 80s car.

On a mission to see Morg, master of the South East division of the FW business empire. Try to shot some tshirts then down to the beach for a birthday barbecue. Sounds like a plan, and maybe, just maybe, if we can get above 40mph and play enough good tunes, it’s going to be a great day.

I wrote three posts for this blog yesterday. Two while sitting in a hot car, people watching and itunes listening. Unfortunately, like a fool, I have left the pad with the entries on at home, covered in scraps of food and baccy. I shall endeavour to bring it in forthwith.

Friday night at the Greek’s and he’s like, “c’mon man, lets go to my uni party man. It will be great.” And I’m like “look dude, I’m not usually up for crashing official events.”

House parties are ok, see also wedding, work parties and other assorted events. Official events can smack of lameness, but in this instance I make an exception – “I’ve had a few drinks dude, why not?”

After a bit of procrastination we eventually rock up and it’s kind of like I expected. Finance masters students wearing sharp suits, casting furtive glances at the their business studies lady counterparts, that dance in groups, sometimes round piles of designer handbags. A large group of Norwegian drunks marauding it on the dance floor, spilling pints and trampling ankles in some kind of tenuous homage to their Viking anscestors. The Greek running around kissing girls on the cheeks in response to their squeals of delight – attempting a quick Sean Paul grind with the lucky few……. And me, bopping to Aretha Franklin records, gradually building my stack of empty beer bottles, slowly gathering my exuberance before training a load of chinese nationals how to appreciate the good Reverend Al Green, before getting the now paralytic Greek home relatively safe.

Proper rinseout day today. Up at crack of dawn, scrabbling around for fruit and horrible depression. Back into the office for a long day of coming up with interesting phrases in reports and trying to keep head down. Calm peace of third coffee mid-morning shattered by call from a client reporting that everyone in his organisation had lost their email. Spent the rest of the day running around like a mad thing, tweaking nameservers and cursing the miscreant who told me that the email was no longer connected and I was cool to go ahead transferring everything a few days ago. Fingers crossed and prayers for a working email tomorrow, following my repair work today, otherwise I’m toast.

The day started well enough. I was on a part-time day and for the first time messed it up properly by sleeping in till twelve. Ouch, berated myself by sitting outside in the searing heat reading about pay systems on my laptop. A solid black unit from the old school of laptop design, it soon heated to around 1000 degrees adding an extra challenge to my note taking. On the plus side it felt good to be tanning my grey body and good to be by own man and sitting in my garden rather than sitting at work.

An afternoon spent catching up with an old mate and then a quick meeting with our legendary design mentor, who fortunately saw fit to give us some more work, put me in an even better mood. So much so that by the end of the day I was delighted to be heading down to the pub on the hill for a few beverages in the beer garden and some no doubt jocular chat with my mates. A good time was had and once again I found myself at home preparing for a final maroot with my pal when disaster struck.

In an ill-prepared and perhaps hastily executed maneuvre, he managed while attempting to “clean up the loose smashed pane in the porch” to somehow trip and put his arm right through the remains of the pane, hideously gashing his unprotected arm. “Quick get an ambulance” he cried. “Show me your arm” I said, to stare down at the squirting hole where part of his wrist should be and glimpse of bone. My phone was out of my pocket in seconds and I was once again, a year on, calling on the emergency services. “Come quick” I instructed the rude boy on the call centre on the other end of the line, “he’s bleeding like drip, drip, drip.” It was horrible – a hastily constructed Groover tourniquet and dispelled some of the blood loss, but my pal was looking a bit green and complaining of dizziness.

The resulting trip in the ambulance and subsequent three hour wait in casualty in Northwick Park, just like last time, reminded me how unpleasant these things really are. I was so knackered I felt like either breaking down in tears or biting someone. Fortunately as both my pal and I were covered in his blood, most of the other degenerates in there gave us a wide berth. Oh yes, but there were some degenerates, from the guy with the cut above his eye, having a full blown domestic with his chavette to the old asian guy who just sat there weeping, ranting away about the fact that no one cared about him. I for one, was tempted to tell him to pipe down, such was the futility of his endless mania led depression. Cockney mockery types swinging around trying to ponce a cigarette and eviling people, trying to start something up out of boredom, frustration, what? A baby with a young West African couple kept screaming. He was not happy to be in a hospital at four in the morning and he had no qualms about showing us it at deafening volume. I felt sorry for the mite, but I felt pretty bad too. One of those moments where all you can do is remind yourself that the whole rest of your life will not be like this and if you can just hold on, just hold on for just a few hours more you can go back to that happy place you distantly remember.

Eventually, they took my pal away and he didn’t come back for some time. I was starting to worry that something had gone funky, that some junior med cranked out on cheap NHS coffee had inadvertently snipped an artery while applying their best cross stitch. But in the end it was ok. My pal had been seen by the top honcho, because of the obvious severity of his injury. She was pretty happy to see him, declaring that it was the first proper emergency of the evening. He said that once we’d stopped the bleeding in the kitchen, he’d thought about just going to bed. She said it was good he’d decided against that as he would have probably died.

So what’s the moral. I don’t know really. I guess another reminder that horrible things pop up from time to time, like the girl at a party I was at today who had a fit, lying on the floor after a lot of sun, weed and poorly mixed dnb, or figroy who inadvertently punched my friend in the eye, triggering fractions and harsh words. It blew over. All I know is that we ended up outside the hospital last night laughing and swigging Dr Pepper and generally being pleased my pal could still move his hand, still open his eyes. Good stuff to feel at quarter to six in the morning, the thought of an empty, smooth and cool bed in my room back home, never looking so sweet.

Just in work for two days this week, which is weird. Feel like a slacker, but actually am having two quite intense days. Trying to get my head in order, but so tired again from last night (back to the three o clock rinseout) and strange feeling of doom. What is this feeling of bleak depression and why has the sun gone behind a cloud? Why do I have nothing to write about, but this angsty half-sentence rubbish? I think it’s time to sort things out and get with the programme. Now I just have to concentrate real hard.

Strolling through Liverpool Street today trying to have a conversation on the phone, and cradling it to my ear because the speaker has gone faint again and holding a box on my shoulder with the other arm. Hot work on a humid day and I had to give up on it eventually. I deposited my box with the pleasant lady in reception then bopped to Pret for the breakfast sandwich. Thus revived I was free to spend the afternoon browsing spreadsheets in semi bemusement. What was I doing and why?

Don’t want to speak too soon, but think it might be working again. Please make some posts and let me know if you are having trouble with images or anything else. Chars

…. Move is now nearly complete. All seems well except can’t seem to use images just at the moment. Clearly this is a limitation that needs sorting, but I think my eyeballs are going to start bleeding if I don’t take a rest from this server rubbish again….

That I quite like my work mates when they and I are stylishly drunk and we don’t have to talk about crime statistics.
That I still like French hip-hop.
That sometimes a little holiday can help you cheer up no end.
That decent red wine is a truly amazing drink that you can even take while horrendously hungover.
That I can get by with 2 hours sleep and a head full of booze, but I can’t climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower at the same time.

Two posts in two days … what’s going on?

I’ll tell you what. Opened the paper today to discover they’ve made a film of Ask the Dust. Starring Colin Farrell as Bandini. For fuck’s sake.

The irony of Hollywood making a film based on the one truly great novel of a man who famously prostituted his talent to make big money as a Hollywood screenwriter is not lost on this Boloist.

I’ll be having a rather large shit the day that film comes out…