A tenner for your thoughts

I was walking along through a shopping arcade today, inbetween work appointments and (hence) much that is annoying me.

When I saw it.

a £10 note (overseas readers should use the currency converter for a sense of the true import of this).

Glinting in the sunlight, diffuse as it was through the overhead decorative windows: sepia-toned (I'm not sure if that was the note itself or the dreamlike state I found myself in upon spotting said item), inviting me to reach down and pick it up.

I did, and immediately felt guilty.

Being honest/stupid (delete as appropriate), I walked up to the person twenty feet ahead of me and asked if he'd dropped any money.

Thankfully he was as honest/stupid as me, and said no, he hadn't. So I am £10 richer.

I know it's not the most exciting thing to blog about, but it's the best thing that's happened to me all day.

So far, anyway...

Low battery power

...so I was going to write a post today about some strange internal madness or something like that, but have postponed that for just now, in consideration of the following:

a) I have to be very careful with the wording, otherwise it might sound a bit weird.

b) I'm using wi-fi in a cafe for the first time ever - that's right, EVER and am stunned into a state of sheer paralysis at the novelty. Well I'm not, but given point a) above, I don't think I would be able to write as clearly, concisely and as sprawlingly beautifully as such a post would merit, since it would feel more like a race against the memento mori that is zero battery power, the crucial moment which draws nearer with every breath and beat of the heart.

So bollocks to it for now.

Actually that reminds me of another post which I ought to write about chess (the game, not the musical), although I stopped playing chess years ago thanks to that selfsame feeling of paralysis. My mate Jean Paul was the last person to challenge me to a game, and after he made the first move, I sat there in a state of ever-increasing bewilderment, unable to respond since every potential move risked unleashing fearful, uncertain and perhaps vicious consequences. In the end I had to apologise.

I'm sorry...I just... can't... do... this... were the words that I uttered in the tragi-heroic style of a thousand epic films in which the leading actor is faced with an agonising if not impossible choice which may have the gravest of implications for the whole of humanity or at least the future of the Post Office.

Ok, fancy some coffee? Came Jean Paul's reply, with a certain stern aspect serving to rebuke my melodramatics.

I'll go no further, for I'm also running the risk of drawing analogies between life and chess, and that would surely be an embarrassing new low.

So bollocks to that for now too.

In summation then, I seem to have written a post about things that I'm not going to post about, at least for now. You have my express permission to desist from gripping the edges of your respective seats.

A taste of horror more violent and sick than anything you can imagine

I was going to call this post Slaying Demons (2), following on from this one. I decided not to because, in the wake of the harrowing experience I'm about to recount, demons have been faced but not slain. Also - and crucially - I thought it better to go with a far less dramatic, less over-the-top kind of title.

An obsessive bloggy-stalker might have seen many a comment of mine on other people's blogs, relating to children's tv programmes, in particular those from my own childhood. Then again an obsessive bloggy-stalker might have printed out those comments and made some sort of shrine, or fashioned them into speech-bubbles and put them on little home-made action figures and played weird games with them.

Anyway, I'm getting off the point slightly.

I had a conversation at work which was a kind of distillation of many of the aforementioned comments - for example, how Mr Benn was (as far as I'm concerned anyway) a metaphor for illicit substances. You know: bloke goes to see a man in a shop, gets to "try on a costume," then spends a whole afternoon having weird and wonderful adventures in strange lands.

Or how incredibly poignant and sad Bagpuss was, and how I don't think I could watch it now for those reasons, and how it served to gently introduce to children the concepts of loss and grief (so someone told me anyway, but it has a resonance).

And so on and so forth.

My colleagues listened and shared their own reminiscences, and then I found myself thinking about it. That programme.

That horrible, dark, scary, squalid, nasty little programme - full of shadows and evil intent. I shuddered.

Did any of you ever watch Pipkins, I asked.

Shit, I'd let the cat out of the bag now. I would have to go through with it.

Pipkins? Can't remember, what was it like?

How to describe it? It was a horrible, dark, scary, squalid, nasty little programme - full of shadows and evil intent, I replied.

Blank looks. No, don't think so.

I went on to describe how it used to scare the shit out of me, how it was all these seedy, malevolent creatures who lived in this shadowy attic, and everything they did was just dark and hellish. Yet I would watch it every week, and it would leave me feeling like I'd had a brush with something evil.

Still blank looks, indeed a furrowed brow hither and thither too. There was one thing for it. I went on the net and found a clip.

It was easier to watch, knowing my colleagues were there with me. A brush with something evil shared, is a brush with something evil halved (or something). They watched, they squirmed, and they understood.

Days later, they're still talking about it - and I'm still shuddering.

Dilemma

The good news is that The Fall are playing this week, and so are Efterklang. Regular readers of this blog (if I'm not flattering myself with the plural*) will know that I'm partial to the Fall's output, having seen them in concert a number of times, and owning one or two or twenty of their albums.

On the other hand, I know next to nothing about Efterklang - even whether I've spelled their name correctly - but they've been recommended to me and, as an added incentive, they're playing down at my local. Which is thoughtful of them.

The bad news is that they're both playing on the same night. So, in short, do I stick with what I know, or do I take a risk?



In other news (I use the term loosely): tonight Matthew, we are going to be Spartacus. Yes it's the pub quiz again. I mention this mainly because when we're in the process of arranging to go, it feels less like a quiz team and more like a bunch of criminals getting together to do "one last job." I think that's how we come across as well.

Last time there was a question asking who was the only Hollywood film star to always be played by a member of the opposite sex: as a joke, I said "Lassie" loudly, and it turned out to be the right answer. Serves me right for trying to be clever.



*or am I being falsely modest by suggesting I'm flattering myself with the plural?

Pressing problems for trousers

Thankfully the preoccupations that have plagued me this week are fading into the background, at least for now: the very fact of publishing the previous post - cryptic as it was - helped a little, as did actually talking to someone: and, not least, being a little easier on myself.

Besides there are far more pressing problems to deal with: The Staff Party.

This takes place tonight, and I'm wondering whether to go or not. Aside from the whole concept of office parties, the first question I'm asking myself is, do I really want to spend any more time than is absolutely necessary at my workplace? Given that I'm inclined to paraphrase (or steal from) dj kirkby and rename it The Chateau of Despair, do I really want to spend my Friday evening there?

Here are a few pros and cons:

There's free food and booze (though apart from a couple of exceptions I've not really been bothered about drink lately).

Regardless of my feelings about work itself, I do like many of the staff, overall they're a good bunch (regardless of their feelings about me).

I'm still shaking off a few residual symptoms of the bug I had earlier this week.

I don't really want to get pissed in front of my work colleagues. I'd be happier acting(?) like a boring old fart. Plus if I do drink more than I should, I might start speaking The Voice Of Truth and find myself treading The Path To A P45 (however long it takes, I'd much rather leave work than be sacked). Chances are if I did get pissed I'd speak unintelligible rubbish, but the possibility still remains.

I've got so many other wild and amazing things I could be doing (well, that's technically true, if not especially likely).

Advice is welcome, though by the time anyone reads this, the probability is I'll have already set myself on a course of action (or inaction). I'll report back. And who knows, before the month is out I might even have delivered on my threat to post my "Landscapes of the mind" scribblings.

Four pairs of trousers

Here's someone who took up residence on my bathroom windowsill some weeks ago. Let's call him Dave.*


Damn right he's pissed off - I just moved the cord which pulls the blinds, and trashed his web. I must have grown quite fond of his presence there, since I actually found myself saying sorry, before I realised how ridiculous that was. This had to be blogged about.

Update: Well he's finally done some rebuilding of his web, it's all rather half-hearted and slow going though. Reminds me of the opening (or was it closing?) sequence to The Rockford Files, or at least the arachnoid equivalent.

More news as it happens.

*name changed from Juan to protect his confidentiality