I had to leave work early yesterday afternoon. I felt like shit, in a big way. I went home and slept, not for long, but enough to make me feel uncertain of the time - 25 minutes of deep sleep is as effective as 2 hours, if not better. I was planning to take today off, I hardly slept at all last night. I remember the 1 o'clocks, the 2's, 3's, 4's and 5's - changing quilts, one was too hot, and the other one was too cold. I went to IKEA not too long ago, I ended up buying a multitude of pillows - I am starting to think it was not such a good idea. Pillow configuration is more trouble than comfort, I was never unhappy with one, or two - but 5, I'm spoiled for choice, so I spend all night trying to find the right choice.

Had pasta with roast chicken thigh, zucchini, red onion and pesto for dinner. Simple, fast. Phil came home confidently 'not pissed' (you show me someone sober after 7 pints of the Guinness and i'll show you the world) in the middle of a program about Tosca and Maria Callas - a discussion about what constitutes noise commenced.

Word of the day:

noise n. Sound or a sound that is loud, unpleasant, unexpected, or undesired.

Simple, but think about it... a jackhammer might not necessarily be noisy. OK, you'd have to be dumb as a bag of hammers to think that the sound of a jackhammer was music to the ears. It's all about perception, Phil, for example classifies opera as noise, period. In his sober state, he was weary of positioning himself into a corner whereby he very nearly had to grant qualitative rights to 'Girls Aloud'. His words.

Just been to lunch. My romance with the canteen has come to an abrupt end. The situation there is that they have 3 set meals, and a call bar, with a choice of 3. The first time I tried my luck on the call bar, I ordered a steak (medium). The chef, who has a cooking malfunction, proceeded to lash my steak across the char-grill. Now I am well aware of my masochistic tendencies, I would rather watch the fool attempt to grill a piece of meat with about as much skill and grace as an executioner with a chainsaw, just to see what the result will be, albeit my lunch that is taking abuse. I asked for my steak to be medium, this chef or cheffie as he should be known, got it into his head that the steak and the grill must become one, he was battering the steak on the grill with his tongs, no finesse, no understanding of the steak, the grill or the poor fucker (me) who had to eat the burned and abused carbon tasting rubbish. Pushing, with all his flimsy might, the steak into the grill, I was constantly reminded of an unfortunate pedestrian meeting his fate by being splattered by a car travelling at mach n speed. Merging with the engine block, morsels mixed with grease and engine grime, minced and scraped, dead. That was my steak.

Imagine Montgomery Burns grilling a steak for you, that's what i got. Chefs who play with food ought to be deep-fried. Put the steak on the char-grill, turn it once, voilla - don't play Jimi Hendrix with my food, bastards.

The Puddings are great, bought in, that manufactured perfection, same thing, all the time, every time - the perfection almost of airline food. I don't know why, but I have a twisted affection for airline puddings. I have even gone so far as to ask people in my row, 'Excuse me, are you going to eat that?' The little bakewell tarts, so perfectly processed, cloned strudel, and the treacle pudding, an age old favourite, the treacle pudding with tetrapack custard. Don't fuck with my treacle pudding. Anything that could form a skin however, like chocolate mousse pie, gelatinous, with dabs of aerosol cream on, Christ, I wouldn't give it to a starving man, even if he begged me for it. Gelatinous hoof pie, looks like chocolate mousse, but doesn't taste like it, because it isn't it.