Guitar man - the David Gray meets James Blunt dickhead who lives in the upstairs flat - played his latest creations this morning. He didn’t start until 10am for a change, but with my late shifts that was far too early. Now I can’t see properly, and it is to be a long day as a consequence.
The moment the first chord was strummed I was awake and unhappy. I dragged myself out of bed, aware that sleep was over, and opened the curtains. It's an absolutely glorious day. I opened my window, then sat up on my window sill to look up at the upstairs flat. Unfortunately the window was closed, so shouting at him wasn’t going to be effective. I will write him a strongly worded letter.
But at least it’s a nice day, and I enjoyed the walk down to the station. My train was full of normal people excited about the gorgeous weather so filled with the inexplicably desire to spend a day on Oxford Street. I was surrounded by Daily Mail readers, all scrutinising articles about how current London Mayor Ken Livingston enjoys secret exotic banquets of the Queen’s swans and halal haribo with terrorists and, worse, asylum seekers, or whatever their latest non-story is.
Then I noticed that on the local Kingston paper I was reading was an advert for Ken’s campaign. It consists of two squares, representing the two plausible choices. And next to the squares read:
DON’T VOTE FOR A JOKE
VOTE FOR LONDON
Then at the bottom: “DON’T RISK
LONDON. VOTE KEN”.
Obviously the majority of political advertising in the past 50 years has been variations on the ‘TIME FOR A CHANGE’ vs. ‘DON’T LET THE OTHER PARTY RUIN EVERYTHING’ messages, but I thought this was a pretty effective one. So I thought I’d do a little experiment – on the tube, I sat holding that page of the paper out, hiding my face, ostensibly for the purpose of reading the story on the other side. Which was about swans, funnily enough.
I watched people’s reactions from the reflection in the glass to the left of me. Most of them looked at it and either looked amused or ashamed, but didn’t say anything. But then a couple got on at Piccadilly Circus, didn’t have much to say to each other, so eventually the conversation turned to the paper I was increasingly obviously holding up for political purposes. The guy was about twenty, and was wearing a red rugby shirt.
“I’m gonna vote Boris”, he said. My heart sank in an unsurprised fashion. Rugby fan in 'votes Tory' shocker.
“Why are you going to vote for a joke?”, replied his girlfriend. The tone of her voice indicated not that she had balanced up the various pros and cons of the candidates and had come to the measured conclusion that Johnson is lacking in actual policy, but that she hadn’t really heard of either of them and just wanted to mock her boyfriend.
“Cos Ken’s crap”, he said. Then he went on to explain in a paternal and patronising tone why Boris was the right candidate. It was a collection of half-remembered and mangled election soundbites, but basically what it came down to was: Boris is going to bring the Routemasters back.
Basically, we’re doomed.
Waist deep in the Thames on a Sunday morning
She kissed all her friends goodbye and she rowed away
Rain came down on Kingston, we stood silent
She will reach the sea in a couple of days
Will you keep the picture safe?
We will keep the picture safe.
I went climbing mountains high above the city
Looking at the river stretched out like a map below
All her friends were scattered to the corners
Nobody understood why she had to go
I will get my story straight:
We will keep the picture safe.
On the evening news a mother drowned her baby
As I sat there, I knew who to blame
Halfway down Embankment hope was fading
Truth is nothing will ever be the same
I will never see her again
We couldn't keep the picture safe.
Face down in the Thames on a Thursday morning
Watch the picture float away.
"It's a rich tapestry"
"I'm living the dream"
"It's all thanks to my Aryan immune system"
"At least you're not universally hated like me"
"It's merely a facade, hiding the face of hell. Or maybe the face of Bo"
"I'm oblivious anyway"
"At least he's not a vegan"
It is estimated that 62 billion emails are sent every single day. Of these, 40 billion of them are advertising fabulous penis pumping opportunities. Ten billion are about pyramid schemes, which never turn out to be about building pyramids; this is a shame, because we need some new pyramids. The old ones are looking a bit knackered.
Of the twelve billion remaining emails, some of them are even worth reading. Here's a selection of some of the bits of communication that have found their way into my various gaping e-orifices over the course of today.
Enjoy.
---
From Geoff to me:
"I got an incomprehensible message from your new friend last night. Something about 'cock to the bop, tennis to the top'? I don't understand although I suspect I probably don't want to."
Me to Lisa:
"The good news, anyway, is that Emo Dan is actually going to write a fanzine all about being Emo Dan. I've no idea whether he wants Geoff and I to help him, but we'll make sure he actually does it. It's quite sweet - you've got him wrapped around your little finger, you do. You have everyone in Nottingham wrapped around your little finger, come to think of it. I hope you plan to use this power for good, not evil."
Lisa to me:
"I'm really excited about the Emo Dan fanzine. I think it's going to be great and everything I ever dreamed about. I have checked my finger and there isn't anyone even perched on it, let alone wrapped around it, so I think perhaps you are mistaken. Are you telling me that Emo Dan loves me? I hope you are. Oh, to be loved by Emo Dan.
TastySam wants to destroy Emo Dan. Poor Emo Dan."
On learning this, Geoff to me:
"Oh dear, what have you done? It's like watching the cream of Nottingham bowlie society curdle before my eyes. Lisa will leave Sam for Emo Dan and will accidentally kill herself cutting her arm to try and impress him. Sam will descend into a deepening drink fueled depression and he and JamieC will be jailed when they are found trying to assassinate Emo Dan by smuggling a crude home made bomb into Rock City under their cardigans. The rest will then slowly dissipate into the ether leaving Emo Dan standing astride Nottingham like a colossus cackling evilly as his army of fat, pasty faced, miserable teenagers sweep all before them and London, Manchester and Sheffield are left as the last bastions of indie."
Unrelatedly, Gina to me:
"I worked in recruitment for a while, it was certainly eye opening. My favourite was a girl who applied to be sales manager of some big chain store, it was like 50k or something. Her experience was that she worked in New Look at the weekends. Oh, and some of the CVs were hilarious too: were my favourite CV was a man who put in his interests bit :- 'I have a large collection of Toby Jugs, one of which is worth over forty pounds'"
Geoff on his landlord:
"I was on the receiving end of a spectacular all encompassing rant from Steve last night which ranged from the planning system to the free market economy as a provider of cheap shoes and hats to council employees on their lunch break and segued effortlessly into the non reaction of Muscovites to seeing cockroaches in a shop. You wouldn't think there was enough room in all the barely comprehensible self righteous indignation to shoe horn in a denunciation of socialism but he managed it somehow.
Sadly the only thing which really surprised me was he managed to go on for ten minutes working himself into a real lather without saying anything racist. He's slipping in his old age."
Paul (via Byron) to King Nathan 'hey I know guys why don't we meet at that pub right next to my house?' Williams:
"Nathan,
Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice-- The weakness and the wickedness of luxury-- The negligence--the apathy--the evils Of sensual sloth--produces ten thousand tyrants, Whose delegated cruelty surpasses The worst acts of one energetic master, However harsh and hard in his own bearing."
And finally, from ebay:
"You are currently the high bidder for the following eBay item: GIRAFFE DESIGN SKIPPING ROPE"
You see, my brain has been trained over the past four months or so into a state of nice mid-week rhythm: no work Monday, work Tuesday, then work from home on Wednesday so no rush hour madness, then go in Thursday and Friday. It breaks the week up nicely. It's hardly like having a job at all.
Talking of which, Nathan's wife gets back at about half five. I wonder how confused she'll be to find me here. I wonder if, by being in the marital home all day, I get full conjugal rights. I'm guessing, legally, I do.
Hello,
I've just got back from Nottingham.I went to see GEOFF and Emo Dan, and to hang out with the Nottingham indie oligarchy for the occasion of a couple of 30th birthdays. I had a really lovely time, to the extent that today I've been flitting around the London tube network singing Dexy's songs to myself and anyone who has had the misfortune to be near me. So, I thought I'd get myself a nice mug of tea and write down a few recollections from the night before they vanish from my unphotographic memory faster than you can say 'memento'.
- Being sat listening to midlands poet laureate MJ Hibbett with a pint of ale and a handfull of wotsits, watching girls in pretty dresses dancing along to 'the lesson of the smiths' ("remember the lesson of the smiths - just because a bunch of wankers like it doesn't mean that it's shit'). And feeling like I'd discovered the secret elixir of happiness.
- Emo Dan's emo response to Hibbett's song about finding pleasure in inconsequentia, 'Easily Impressed': 'your philosophy of joy won't affect me'.
- Showing everyone my amazing Communism bruise, which appears to be changing colour more often than Jesus.
- Wearing a lovely gold medal saying 'winner', which a drunk woman of easy virtue decided I had been awarded by Emo Dan, who was, in her interesting version of reality, my gay lover, and he's walked into my room and seen my cock, then given me a medal because it was so large. We argued that, surely, if he was my gay lover, then he'd have seen my cock before, and wouldn't have been so award-distributingly impressed by its mighty size. She was having none of it.
- Going back to Hannah's flat, and singing singstar, and listening to Lisa and Emo Dan talk about being health care professionals (one cuts the corns off old people, and is relieved when they're dead so she gets the afternoon off; the other mixes potions). And Lisa cunningly getting Emo Dan to reveal the spectacular extent of his massive, non-emo salary
- Being made to dance to terrible (ie brilliant) Britpop by/with Lisa, while doing lots of twirling.
It was all lovely, anyway. I love Geoff and Emo Dan, I do.
Hello chaps and chapettes,
I'm at work and I'm so tired I'm giggling with despair. The day started badly, with South West Trains - in their infinite mysterious wisdom - deciding to replace trains from New Malden with buses that don't turn up. It took me half an hour to get to Wimbledon, and when I finally arrived my train wouldn't leave until I'd helped the guard find his glasses, which he'd dropped on the tracks:
"They just slipped off. They should be down there somewhere"
"It's too early in the morning. I can't see yet"
And the memory of how the previous evening ended has just come back to me in glorious supermarionation: namely, with my reassuring a lovely gay man from Truro about London gay life. He'd just had a disconcerting moment with another guy on the bus, who had been flirting with him incessantly, then suddenly got up and shouted:
"Mate, you're gay, innit. You are, don't fucking lie. You're a gay boy".
Then stormed off the bus.
I turned to the shell-shocked guy in question and, in finest Spaced tradition, said: "what a prick". We had a bit of a chat and Truro chap explained that the guy had been very friendly - and by friendly I suppose I mean he was fondling his bottom - but then when one of his mates noticed he went all defensive and then offensive. We talked about closets, and how much people enjoy living in them.
Right, I'm off to find soup and to avoid gypsies.
J x
I never work on Mondays. I never know what to do with my Mondays off. Part of me thinks I should spend the day on worthy things, such as cutting the toe-nails of hobos or making soup for out-of-work ventriloquists. Or else, I should dedicate Mondays to self betterment (sic) activities such as learning ugly-sounding languages or memorising the Kings and Queens of made-up countries.
Seriously, though, it's an odd day off to have, as Sunday evening becomes like a Friday night, and I want to go to the pub and have fun and things, but no-one else wants to do anything. Everyone is battening down the psychological hatches and preparing for another working week.
Generally what I end up doing is sitting in a cafe on the high street, attempting to write letters while surreptitiously making up vignettes about / silently judging my fellow Monday afternoon cafe-goers. Also, I enjoy the awkward banter with the cafe owner, who knows I always order earl grey tea and so starts the process before I even make it to the counter. I like to confound him by ordering, you know, something else instead. Even if it's something I don't like.
If anyone can think of a wise and sensible use of my Monday time, then do let me know via the usual means.
J x
There are some coasts
Where the sea comes in spectacularly
Throwing itself up gullies, challenging cliffs,
Filling the harbours with great swirls and flourish,
A theatrical event that people gather for
Curtain up twice daily. You need to know
The hour of its starting, you have to be on guard.
There are other places
Places where you do not really notice
The gradual stretch of the fertile silk of water
No gurgling or dashings here, no froth no pounding
Only at some point the echo may sound different
And looking by chance one sees 'Oh the tide is in.'
Jenny Joseph (b. 1932)
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Recent Comments
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newmalden said:
Minks - yes, that does seem to be most people's justification for voting for him: "it'll be funny". I suppose... read more
on We're doomed -
fox in the snow said:
I am taking the DAY OFF WORK to make sure I find my voting station. Leyton's a big place, and... read more
on We're doomed -
minks said:
gosh, that entry made me homesick. Were I still resident I've be voting for the Kenster. I expect that most... read more
on We're doomed -
newmalden said:
Rest assured I have been telling everyone I know to remember to vote. Unfortunately quite a few of them haven't... read more
on We're doomed
Where are the routemasters? read more
on We're doomed