A little history on the fear of bubblegum...

I knew a little boy once who would search the underside of tables in restaurants - wracked by the compulsive fear that he would find used gum stuck there. He refused to eat in places at tables where there was gum lodged - hard and smooth. This made things quite difficult as all tables were polluted. He rated the restaurants according to the level of gum pollution. By the way - he was a red-haired compulsive.

Notice this the next time you hear the senseless, tacky suck of a set of jaws grinding their cattle cud of vile chemical. All resemblance and indication of intelligence seems to vacate a person jamming their jaws on chewing gum. Mouths agape for the world to see, eyes, blank and bleak - the act of chewing gum shorts the flow of neurotransmitters to the brain. Chewers do it without synapses.

For those interested in reading the definitive anti-chewing gum argument, please read here. For those who agree with me, we are not alone.

Just got in to work, it's 10:25. My usual granary roll with bacon and brown sauce has hit the spot, my coffee glides down and warms my soul. I went up to St Mary's hospital in Paddington this morning to get my MRI scan done. My left ear has been playing up for a year now and the doctors couldn't find anything wrong. There is definitely something wrong in there... why else would I have the feeling, that unscratchable itch, that desire to reach inside and remove my inner ear, rip it out and put in a new shiny replacement part.

St Mary's is an old hospital, at least it feels old. The passages are narrow and uneven, they are more like tunnels that evolved into passages. The MRI unit is down in the basement, and I get the feeling of history, and death - the picture turns black and white and you can imagine what it must have been like 60 years ago. There is an air of history. The other feeling is one that is not as noble as sepia tone history. It's the Jacob's Ladder number, with dark corridors, the images of wounded soldiers and people in striped flannels turns into decaying spirits, tormented, rotting souls shaking violently and calling me from beyond.

A hospital bed is being wheeled about, the wheels, years old and squeeking, groaning under the constant use and abuse. Zoom in, fast and flash, a hazed picture, dark, bleached colors, the wheel starts to wobble and spasm, as broken wheels do - the floor is grimey and stained, perhaps years of blood, some of it looks fresh though, not fresh deep red, rather smudgy congealed brown, it's cold, I tense my shoulders and snug further into my jacket. My breath steams, I feel I'm going to black out, freeze-frame fall down and tumble, on my knees, my hands hit the floor and slip in something wet, saliva runs from my mouth, my throat gags and fills up, i manage not to vomit. Frantic squeek approaching me, jerking front left wheel on gritty floor, the stuttering wheel passes my face, a piece of meat, something, organ, is wedged and throbbing between the wheel and the frame, it leaves a trail, liver.

I find the MRI unit and speak to the delightful girl behind the desk. She is european of sorts and friendly enough but I can't help but think of desk-fools in the NHS as just being of varying degrees of lobotomy. I wait my turn, I can hear that clucking, cliking and grinding of the MRI scanner. I begin to feel sick, never thought I would find myself in this situation again. People in the wards, grey, staring blankly into nowhere, drugged and dreaming, unsure of how they came to this place, would they ever leave, if so, alive?

The scan was not as bad as I remembered. 15 minutes was all it took and I even managed to have a micronap, thanks to the earplug they gave me. My head was fastened into a holder, and a granulated voice send digitised instructions to me over the white noise. The earplug added to the distance, I think that's what sent me off. I have a date booked to get my hernia repaired on the 7th April and the anaesthetist wants the results of the MRI scan before that, in case they do find something, then they can kill two birds with one stone, can't blame the NHS for that. From time to time, and unfortunately only in times of emergency, you can hit slip-streams of efficiency in the NHS.

Dollar left for Barcelona this morning. She was very excited. Youth, true youth, blind youth, in a way can be defined as really not having any regard for the unknown, no fear, no respect. The older we get, the more important we think our decisions are, the more we realize how trivial our youthful fears and concerns were, no more time to give up as a sacrifice to the god of chance and exploration. Gambling time and distance travelled divided by mistakes made, his magic formula. The saddest thing is a scared youth. I felt scared for Dollar, she was fine, looking forward to the unknown - but I have had a good dose of the unknown, I was raised there, that's where I come from, I sometimes feel that's where I belong. We need tools to survive the unknown, and once you realise that the unknown is everywhere, the tools become more and more important. Our best tool is not intelligence, but skills, a career so to speak, how are we going to pay for the unexpected, no money, no decision, no power. I have at least had 2.5 to 3 careers so far, purveyor of murth, feeding people, teaching them to speak english, and then abandoning them altogether for a crossover into the darkside of computers. Dollar doesn't quite have the definition, I'm scared for the years of confusion that potentially lay ahead, the realization that your time to not care is over, that what you have is your own luggage, that what you own is nothing. And so the long walk begins, not all of us are lucky enough to take that long walk, some are not affected, and they live thier lives by what they see in front of them, long walkers are big thinkers, mostly to their own detriment. Dollar is in for a long walk, either she breaks it, or it breaks her, the latter can't really inflict anything other than regret, which is worse. The heaviest bag of all is that of regret, I'm scared Dollar doesn't relish the long walk, and ends up regretting it. Dollar, if/when you read this, hang in there baby sister, it's about to get so good.

I have 2 quotes of the day, I dedicate them to my baby sister Dollar:

Life is a strange journey from peculiar station to peculiar station - blessed are those who ride it with grace, and wit, and charm.

- Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.

- Arthur C. Clarke

Thank fuck it's Friday. You may scowl, I said thank fuck it's Friday. I am starting to wonder if I have some mild form of Seasonal Affective Disorder. It can't be all the beer, because it's only lately that I feel like my legs are made of aspic. I have been getting to bed by midnight, some nights - so I'm not short on sleep. I need a holiday, I haven't had a holiday in, '   ', I just sat for a minute trying to remember my last holiday, I can't - that's how long it's been since I had a holiday.

Tasos has been kind enough to remind me...

short memory: your last holiday was lunchtime

One thing that as surprised me, is that I have been remarkably calm lately. There haven't been any urges to trawl the west end of London with a combine harvester, or place snipers on rooftops

Two days have past... it's Sunday - the good feelings haven't stayed with me...

and in train carraiges to take out those reading over people's shoulder or chewing gum. Having just mentoined gum, i twitch, nervously, a vein in my left eye throbs and a headache is brought on by anxiety and tension. I no longer feel peaceful towards my fellow man, woman or any other gum chewing cow simulation idiot. What is with that little piece of white chemical rubber that people feel compelled to churn over in their mouths under the belief that it is actually healthy or pleasant for everyone else to watch. The streets and sidewalks of London are pointelized by little smutty marks, years of discarded gum. I wait for the day that society is told by scientists and ecologists that chewing gum has had a devastating effect on our environment. My ultimate armageddon, my prefect end to humanity is death by bubble gum - wouldn't it be great if we killed ourselves and our planet by discarded chewing gum.


I sit in train carraiges or on busses, and first i hear the little sucking sound of someone chewing their cud. Then the smell hits me, and i can't take it - my nostrils are being wrestled by something inside someone else's mouth... there is a brand of gum that is for the super-user, the professional gum chewer. It has so many minty checmicals in it, that I can actually feel it on my eyeballs. Some motherfucker's gum, the little chemical cud in someone else's mouth is burning my eyeballs. My eyeballs, my eyeballs - it's burning my eyeballs.



Acronym for the day:

FUD - fear, uncertainty, and doubt

/fuhd/ An acronym invented by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found
his own company: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales
people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering
other products." - currently used with reference to Micro$oft's attack on OpenOffice.

No blog since last Saturday. The week has been torturous - hangovers and lack of afternoon powernaps have left me feeling exhausted and pining for the weekend, when it's more natural to drink and behave like a pirate. Bottle city has developed rapidly under the kitchen table, which is where we keep our empties. The house recycles, and we get our wee trash-category baskets from the council. The baskets live in the hallway entrance to the building, and we used to take our emties downstairs to dump in the basket designated for glass . We decided that it would be a better idea to plant one of the baskets in our kitchen, that way we could just take it down on Sunday night for recycling on Monday morning.

The idea to take one of the baskets up to our flat came about at a neighbour's housewarming party. The people below us, no 6 - were a group of interesting wine drinking classical musicians (they have since moved out). Their mouths were permanently stained and purple from the vin rouge, strained, yet pleasant sounds of piano and violin would wrestle out from behind the yellow no 6 door. The other neighbour is a Japanese gentleman who lectures at the University of London - he is a specialist in Afro-Asian relations. I tried to find out exactly what that meant, to no avail. But it was at the housewarming party where the topic of the recycling baskets came under discussion. The Japanese fella bounded to his feet and in amazement cited a list of all alcohol we drank - for example, we had purchased a couple of cases of rioja some time during the summer - he announced to everyone in the room 'ahhh, you dlinking reejohaa people, yes'. To our shock and horror, we realized that he had been scouting the recycle bins, piecing together the puzzle of other people's lives through scrutiny and analysis of their waste. I began to wonder if the wonderful pepper, garlic and ginger aromas that often wafted from his flat didn't possibly contain human.

So it was more out of embarrassement that we decided to keep a recycle basket up in the flat, and quietly sneak it outside on a Sunday night. It didn't take long to fill the basket when the thought of having to bring another basket up left us thinking that there might be cause for concern. A period followed whereby beer was bought in cans. That way we could crush the can and throw it in the regular rubbish. A pleasant side effect was that along with the can, any residue guilt from a small mountian of bottles also ended up as rubbish in the bin, not to be recycled.

Saturday afternoon, Manchester. There are gale force winds threatening to blow the entire region away. A poplar tree in the back garden is about to fall over, it's presently being propped up by the garden shed. Apparently there is a chainsaw in the shed. It's Barabara's favorite implement of destruction. I offered in all seriousness to defeat the dying poplar by gashing at its achilles with a chainsaw. Naturally she saw the potential pitfalls such an excercise might incurr - I think her self-preservation skills are more sophisticated than mine. If it were up to me, I'd have bits of tree flying all over the place, threatening to blind people, frantic whirring, exhaust fumes and chain-toothed saw gashing excitement threatening the community of Chorlton cum Hardy; and all of this done in gale force winds. And who said sopped, dull days in grim north country cannae be exhilarating?

Babs just had a wean, she's 3 weeks old... Annabelle. She's sweet as pie and good as gold and falls asleep on my shoulder like a wee kuala bear in a yellow jumpsuit. I'll put up a picture. I've come up to help Babs for the weekend, three hands are better than one. Nothing's different really other than someone else's house, a baby and another city. The sofa, beer and telly remain familiar.

I'm off to the butcher to buy a nice piece of meat to cook for dinner. If you are lucky i'll post a picture of that too.

Been on a lunchtime blog-scout down to the Tate gallery. I borrowed Tor's digital camera - why I don't have one, I don't know (the fact that I can barely afford the rent is a good enough reason why!). I had to get snaps of the Weather Project before the installation finishes. Tonight I'll start incorporating pictures into the blog.

The batteries ran out as I was taking a picture of the installation. Try finding somewhere in the industrial wasteland that is Blackfriars where you can buy AA batteries, It's like trying to find WMDs in Iraq!

Slept for England last night. I hardly slept at all on Monday night, because of the afternoon powernaps I think. I nearly died from lack of beer on Monday night as well. Yesterday afternoon I detoured past the alco-mart to ambush the beer shelves. 6 weans of Becks, 2 of the biggest bottles of Hoegarten money can buy, and a large bottle of La Chouffe for the serious. I proceeded to lighten the burden of human existence by sucking down one after the other. Priceless.

Phil came home with ingredients for a green curry with fish. It was fanastically good, the exact level of heat one would want from a green curry. One of his journo buddies, who writes for The Independent was round for a visit. The politician arrived, as usual, a couple of hours late. I avoided first name basis as there was Saeed and Shahid. Phil said something to the effect of 'If I can get Zahid round as well we can have phonetic nomenclature nightmare soirée...'

Shahid the politician gets Phil to publish his own brand of spin. Shahid is promoting himself inside the party to gain some kind of status, probably that of an MP. It is such a strange game to play, politics. From time to time though, Shahid will need to design and print some new self propaganda. This is usually done in the small hours, Shahid's underground propaganda sweatshop in Maida Vale, industriously planning new layouts for his pamphlets. Shahid bought a printer which takes up half of Phil's room. It's so big, you'd want to chain it down. It looks dangerous, like heavy machinery, you could probably feed it things, other than expensive paper. So the political party rolls into town. I don't think Shahid ever sleeps. The Maida Vale sweatshop is one of his locations, 'Hot Offices' - an HQ of sorts, yes, his printing house. Everyone in the house turns into a supporter/employee when the carnival comes to town. He had bought a new suit, Hugo Boss, very nice. We got a showing of the suit, twirls and all. He also had his new laptop with him, a Dell, 17" laptop with walnut dash style case. Very business-like, very nice, i'd love one of those... for the processing power of course, fuck the walnut dash.

His PA or adviser, lifestyle guru, groupie, style-council or whatever she is is quite interesting, because I'm not sure which of the afore mentioned she is. It's like they're on the campaign trail, our caravan just another place to work, anybody present is by default part of the brigade, we all share the same interest. She offered great advice on a shirt for the new suit, 'floral Paul Smith styles' is what my good ear picked out. My beer induced haze and the debate on BBC 2 with Jeremy Paxman caused me to be more selective than usual. Sometimes I expect a monkey on a monocycle clanging cymbals to come whizzing through - I wouldn't even bat an eyelid, even if it greeted me.

It's all great fun anyhow. Someone like Shahid is a great resource for possible characters - in fact many of Phil's mates are, far from boring.

Dollar has expressed a dislike for Edinburgh. She wants to come down and spend her evenings with me and the telly. That is fine by me, she just can't stay there. She is going to ask Aunt Ruby if she can use their flat in Warwick Avenue, which I think is a great idea. Having Dollar around is like having Dr Seuss, the cat in the hat about. Nutty, slightly demented entertainment from someone, who really is one of those people who think differently. Here is a picture.



Just got back in from lunch. Today was Irish day in the canteen, naturally we can attribute that to St Patrick. Black pudding with apple and cabbage, colcannon, stew and a brothy sausage number adorned the hotlights. Once again, I was to be served by someone who didn't speak or understand a fucking word of English, 'English I say, as spoken in England, where you now find yourself standing - you u-n-d-e-r-s-t-a-n-d?' His charades was not up to European standards either. I mean how the fuck does one act out 'colcannon', 'mash with cabbage'? So I did his job for him, I served myself while he watched. How can they employ people in the service industry who don't speak the language? Why does the English world feel obliged to absorb inconsistency and exception to the norm, and then expect us to adapt? Would the French employ me in a corporate canteen with the extent of my french? Je ne peux pas ne sais pas!

A new kind of blurb has appeared on the internet. Interactive ads that appear on a layer over what you are viewing. They are not picked up as popups and they are all over the place. The most irritating of its kind, our world is saturated by spam, a constant flotsam and jetsam of foamy garbage has permeated our lives. All we have been reduced to as humans is to absorb advertising. I feel sick and depressed about it, we are, or are becoming absolutely useless. Are we as humans making ourselves redundant, and in our strife for convenience working our way out of the job of being human beings? Phil sent me a rant to the editor of The Guardian newspaper, because of similar popup ads on their site...

Have you tried reading any of your content with the ad for the Money
Unlimited whirring cogs ad-animation in full swing? Migrainous isn't it? I
clicked on the offending ad to leave a message for the company concerned to
give them a piece of my mind only to discover it was an 'in-house'
production - pointless. You might regard the fact that I felt compelled to
do this as a shining example of 'traffic' that your ads can generate, but I
simply view it as a stinking turd deposited atop an article by Noam Chomsky
that, as a result, I can't be bothered to finish.

Please stop it.

A few weeks ago I sent a parcel for Dave back to South Africa with Gail. I should never have disclosed the contents of the box. It looks like he might be getting them tomorrow, despite my attempts to get a courier to pick them up and take them away. Simply put, I love my family, it's just that the majority of them have been seriously inflicted with unreliability, I'm sure though, that tey have the best intentions. They have been removed from the box (that must have something to do with the fact that are rediculously expensive) and are now on their way to some reception in a building in Pretoria. 'Oh, look', said someone 'A very nice pair of sunglasses'. Apparently they were removed from the box in order to make space, for a box 10cm X 5cm, I'm not sure there's room for a box that size. My personal theory is that they had probably been removed from the box weeks ago (by my ostrich-like sisters, who would ambush anything expensive, shiny or just not theirs and claim it), spent the last 3 weeks on Alice's head, the box got binned, and now that they have been exposed to the world, they might as well stay that way. It's like looking after someones house, and rearranging the furniture. Simple rules apply, if it's not destined for you, then leave it alone. Simple, you'd think wouldn't you. No Xan, not in this world.

I finally decided to put a picture of my family up. This is them enjoying a day out on their bicycles.

THE SAIL

A lone white sail shows for an instant
Where gleams the sea, an azure streak.
What left it in its homeland distant?
In alien parts what does it seek?
The billows play, the mast bends, creaking,
The wind, impatient, mons and sighs...
It is not joy that it is seeking,
Nor is't from happiness it flies.
The blue waves dance, they dance and tremble,
The sun's bright rays caress the seas.
And yet for storm it begs, the rebel,
As if in storm lurked calm and peace!...

(1832) Mikhail Lermontov

Monday morning, off to a good start... so far. Potential dangers lie ahead. Today's menu brings despair, pork goulasch, vegetable goulasch... I know what that means, in kitchen terms thats means making a load of 'vegetable goulasch', splitting it in two, and adding pork to one of them. I know cheffie is involved, I saw him this morning.

The weekend was wonderful. Jonathan invited us round for dinner on Saturday. Last week with drunken brio, I announced to everyone present that I could pretty much seduce anyone with pudding. Dinner was arranged later in the week, and pudding was assigned to me. I had by this stage not been able to retrieve the data from the alcohol induced 'blackout' zone that is post-pissed denial, there was no way I was getting out of this having blasted my own trumpet. I settled on bread 'n' butter pudding. Simple, delicious. I did have a few tricks up my sleave though. It is one of my favorite puddings to make. I have made thousands of them, in all variations, using brioche, croissants, fat sliced bread, thin sliced bread, stale bread, fresh bread, with currants or without. Every conceivable version of bread 'n' butter pudding has been made by me. I have even put it on menus in Sweden, where it was received with mixed reaction, mostly confusion. Strange that it was in Sweden where I perfected the pudding. I think one of the principle problems people have with the pudding is that is can be stodgy. I began using a light creme brulee mix as opposed to the heavier double cream and full egg type custard mix that the English use. I replaced the currants with caramel and armagnac soaked sultanas. I hear a history of English grannies thrashing about in their graves for this bastardisation of their beloved pudding. Don't fuck with their puddings. I am confident however that I could win anyone over, including the most ardent pudding traditionalists. It turned out to be more of a bread 'n' butter soufflee, light, puffy, with crispy edges, delicious. It was a winner. I then began on what I could do with chocolate. The people sat around the table, in particular the ladies let me work my way into a corner whereby I would once again have to produce the goods at a dinner party, or shut up. Another dinner date was made, pudding, would be mine. I never learn.

Dollar came back on Sunday from Devon. The last time I was at the Ward residence I left my phone there. No loss. I was walking down Warwick ave to get my phone when I passed the a car full of Devonshire folk. Dollar bounded from the car. She came hurtling toward me, shreaking, what I thought was my name - threw her arms around me and never let go. She was pleased to see me...

I knew that although she'd had a great time in Devon, at 'the vicarage' Where Chris and Ruby now live, she was pleased to see someone else. Ruby emerged from the car looking like someone from Totnes, 'oooo, iarch, y'oo don'e be fro' arowned these paerts' - it had obviously been windy in Devon, or Aunt Ruby had spent the drive up to London with her head out the window. We went upstairs and drank Jasmine tea.

Dollar has a mouth that would make a sailor feel on the bottom of the vulagarity evolutionary ladder. She can't help herself, it's fuck this and fuck that, some mild form of Tourette's. She was told that such vulgarities were not common place in the vicarage. Chris, a true diplomat and peace loving representative got Dollar on to using adjectival in place of vulgarities - so instead of saying 'oh my god, I burned the fucking toast' she should say 'oh my god, I burned the adjectival toast'. This probably turned out to be a bad move. Absolutely everything became adjectival - well, they did hand it to her. As kind and cultured as they are, you do not hand someone with a sense of humor so caustic, like that of a goat on speed, the opportunity to enforce your own preferences to the point where you then regret it, let Dollar curse! Fan the flames with ethanol, pure ethanol.

Dollar told me all about life down in Devon with Chris and Ruby. It sounds ideal. Three meals a day, 2 of those meals include pudding, at dinner you discuss what you would like for breakfast. There is an organic market in the vicinity, so well-hung beef, smelly cheese and a myrriad peculiar country delectables are standard issue. At lunch Chris reads the news to everyone, summarizing the important news for group discussion. That is such quality, basking in the after-glow of a 3 meat and veg lunch, pudding, wine a-plenty, and then dousing onesself in a round of debate and discussion. I might never leave Devon.

I'm feeling human again. I've had 2 early nights in a row - tallying 15 hours sleep in the last 48. I've had time to get a caffeinated elixir down me before I leave home in the mornings. I think this helps me tolerate people, even the blatantly stupid ones. I never went golfing last Sunday. The prospect of chatting to the 'Golf Sale' guy made me chuckle to myself. I remember now that I made a huge mistake a couple of months ago. I once bought some of the ugliest golfing pants in Sweden. I was ridiculed by all my friends and family, I even took abuse from people I didn't know. I loved them, really, I did, the pants that is. They ended up in the charity store over the road for some other very lucky bastard to discover. I don't think everyone believes in trousers that can change your life. It's been a while since I had a pair of magical trousers.

I've got my sister Dolly with me at the moment, she's been here since Monday and it's been great to have her stay with me. She's come over to get some head-space, rearrange the mental furniture and dust the emotions off. For some reason she thinks that things are difficult. It's the Learmont 'I'm tormented for some or other reason' gene that we all have in some form or another. What's the worst that can happen? You have your youth to be immortal and invincible. A time comes when that romance dies. It's heartbreaking to see someone who's got the time to do whatever they please, and they don't - fear of sorts prevents them from living, they'd rather let the weeds beneath their feet grow into vines. It's hard to understand, but one day you realise that your baggage is yours, even though someone else may have started packing it for you, ultimately it's yours, you're the one who dies with it, as the wise old geezer in Shawshank said, Get busy living, or get busy dying. There can be no greater experience than putting yourself out there, on the edge, the real edge, not some self-defined 'this is my edge' edge - you'll know it when you really think you're going to die. Nothing brings perspective like the proposition of death. The absolute realisation of mortality. We don't have time to waste, especially not on fear.

This is great - i'm getting response here... this comment was posted up, I thought it was worthy of more exposure.

Dear Blogger

As the official reincarnation of the great Bobby Locke I would recommend that you desist from any attempt to qualify the ancient and honourable game of golf in the exercise of your limited philosophy. Your ramblings add nothing to the sweet science - and I suspect you are worse on the course. Leave golf to the true golfers. I'll bet Ernie Els would be keen to have a go at your empty head with a nine iron. He definitely wouldn't need a driver. Go and play pinball.


I wonder, has Bobby Locke's reincarnation has ever swallowed a 9 iron, sideways? Bring it on, ball-boy.

Hopefully I'll be able to start some kind of Golf Rage - or even better, golf riots and looting of golf sales. Mad and enraged men in salmon colored v-neck jerseys and plus fours stalking and hunting the not golf-worthy heathens like me, their pockets stuffed with little white balls, fists full of golf tees and plastic bags with their clubs in, spumous from their mouths, like rabid dogs, the golf playing hell hounds released to slather me with their putters, all the way to hell. Ah, the sweet science of golf - forgive me father, for I know not what I do.

Our Scotch piss artist has been in contact again...

Ah see ye posted mah wee comment - ah think ir wiz proabably done in a mean spirited moment. Ah get the impression yoo'd use me as coamic relief. Well - it'll no work. Ah'm a dedicated artist - ah'm rich enough - enriched by mah ain work - tae spend aw mah money flying tae selected cauld environments whare the best snaw is. Ah ken mair aboot snaw than Miss Smilla. So, nae pun intended, dinna try tae pull the piss oot o' me. It'll no work, ye weasely bastart. Ah ken yoor problem fine - it's fukkin vanity.

anonymous

Saturday night. Arsenal just thundered to a 5-1 defeat over Portsmouth. It was like watching the Harlem globe trotters, only better. Popped into the alco-mart for some of the frosty brew, so I've got my evening cut out for me. I broke the bathroom mirror earlier this week, incurring 7 more years of bad luck, bring it on. One little shard of compensation however is that the cosmic court of luck has bestowed upon me a free shaving mirror. Now I can get all my preening done in the comfort of my bath.

I was supposed to go shopping in Picadilly Circus this afternoon, for golf shoes. Not just any golf shoes, but ones with soft rubber spikes. Aparently they have come to the conclusion that metal spikes cause damage. Strange that! I was intent on buying the cheapest most unsightly golf shoes I could find. In a strange way I was quite looking forward to this particular shopping experience. I would take the Bakerloo down to Oxford Street station. Head out of any of the exits, fight my way through the crowd, rummage through my pockets for a randomly placed hand granade to clear the way. Good thing I'm tall, not unusually tall, but enough to refer to 90% of the population as midgets. What I'm really looking for, looking out for, what everyone who lives in London, or has been to London has always wondered about. I'd be looking up, for something large, elevated and Haight-Ashbury luminous green or orange with ' Golf Sale' written on. For as long as I have been in London, that poor bastard on Oxford Street has been there, with that massive 'Golf Sale' sign strapped to his back. If I asked him for advice on the golf sale, I wonder if he'd give a fuck, I wonder if he'd even understand the words coming out of my mouth. He could put the 'client facing' aspect of the job on his CV.

I hear you gag in a curdled cocktail of disbelief and surprise. Phil and co, Jonathan are keen golfers, crap ones I should imagine. I think they play golf just to hire a golf buggy and play rally on the golf course. Fear and Loathing on the 9th hole. I can imagine wooping and josteling, a refridgerated mini-bar strapped to the back of the golf buggy. That could be great fun. Golf's what you make it, might as well take the piss. I was invited to go along with P & J tomorrow. Golf course rules stipulate that proper (the more hidious the better) shoes need to be worn. And get this, you cant just go along and use someone elses clubs, you need to have at least half a set of clubs in a bag.

I decided to put sensibility before ridicule. Since my bank account was emtied by scoundrels, I thought it better to spend whatever money I have left on food and travel. A definite sign of age, along with actually contemplating trying my hand at golf.

I have a fan... let's hope we get more input for output:

Hello.

Ah'm a scotch piss artist wi' six weans - ah' do urine dawings and sculptures in snaw an' other melty stuff - its ultra cool - ma mither sez so - an' fine she should ken. You canna put my stuff oan yer site - it disnae last aw that long. But fuck, it's guid! If ye miss me - yer missing genius.

Anonymous.

Just back in from lunch. We get the menus off the intranet and print them out on Monday mornings. Office people need stupid bits of useless information in their lives, processes and habits. Offices are advanced evolutionary environments, extensions of civilization. We have hierarchies, rules, procedures; standard operating one's at that! Nothing gets done without a process, and if there is no process, don't do it, rule of law. If you want to stand out, write the process, if you write a process, you own it. That means that you then annex and define whatever is affected by that process.

I recently compiled a book of processes, carefully compiled, key colored text, purple for objects, green for paths, there's more, but you'd think I was sad, it is all absolutely perfect. I took it down to repro and had it printed and bound, with dividers and glossy covers. I said to Jimbo in repro, 'Jim' I said 'I like expensive paper' - as a man who takes pride in his printing, a tap on the nose was enough to inspire Jim, make him feel like he's the only one for the job. Needless to say, when I handed the work of art over to my manager, I knew I owned that book of processes.

I get processes handed over to me now, with a remark that some documentation exists, but not like mine. It's just more for me to take ownership of. Don't challenge me to a process write-off, unless you expressly intend to lighten your workload, you'll lose.

Back to lunch and Monday's printing out of the menu, for the Kingscote Restaurant, or the Staff Trough, as I prefer it to be known. Everyone has been looking forward to today. Usually the trough (you have probably read earlier blogs about falling out of love with the canteen) is hideously uninspiring, apart from the tetrapack custard and puddings, ah, it is through consistency and by that I mean reliability or uniformity of successive results and not degree of density, firmness, or viscosity as pertaining to custard that we derive happiness and lemming like automation to carry on through the grey drone, drag and uphill struggle of everyday life. I just shudder at the thought, that one day, I will walk into the trough, and find no tetrapack custard. The very thought brings with it severe anxiety.

Usually, one can safely get down to the trough, grimace at what lays in trays, bain maries and gastronomes without too many people being there at any one time. Behind the passé, another gaumless east European face stares blankly back at you. Images of cold damp nights starving in baskets and barrels on barges and passenger liners, in suitcases and cages in freezing airline freight compartments are conjured up from the part of the brain that owns 'images of stowaways'. I caused quite a stir 2 days ago, when I asked if the yellow substance next to the salmon was hollandaise or custard. I guess they're not ready for humour. I thought I'd hit her in the face with a searchlight and was about to blast her away with my .308 Winchester large bore hunting rifle when she ran off into the kitchen. Returning 1 minute later, confirming my suspicion of what I thought the yellow substance was. I contemplated another joke about them trying to make me really feel at home by offering me custard with my salmon when I thought better not to. She probably still has the basket and the barge fresh in the mind, bless.

Today at 12 o'clock sharp, when the trough was ready for serving, I hastily made my way out of the office and down the hallway. There was a certain energy in the air, people starting to spill out of the plush carpeted offices into the hallways and elevators, like ants, lemmings. I took the shortcut down the far end of the hallway to the cream marble stairs, when I realised that I had forgotten my swipecard, which we use to pay for our feed. I dashed back to retrieve my card, on the way out of the office, I passed the elevator, the door was closing, my near panic state caused me to lunge at the door and squoosh my way in. The nature of elevator doors is such that when squooshed, they open. This happened, the doors opened again behind me, I looked ahead of me, there were too many people in the elevator, too many for comfort, there was no way I was going to take any chances on missing today's lunch, I pretended not to be mad, apologised, and backed out of the lift. I ain't getting stuck there and left behind, suckers!

You are wondering why the excitement about today's trough feature. Let me ease your pain, roast beef with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, gravy and veg. I got a tray and implements of destruction. I placed myself in the queue, looked up only to see cheffie, yes, the butcher of Blackfriars carving the roast beef. A boot the size of a London bus came swinging out from nowhere, an evil trap, it took me right in solar plexus, winded, down. My masochistic tendencies prevented me from backing out of the queue, maybe another, less idiotic chef will appear in a puff of smoke and replace numb-nuts over there with the roast beef and the chainsaw. I got to the front, indicated that yes, I was in line for roast beef. The beef looked very lively, and by that I don't mean rare, more like blue, raw, still I remained in the queue, masochist. The chap in front of me asked if all the roast beef was raw, cheffie remarked that 'it had already been turned over' - what, you only cook the sides? I wanted to lunge at him, drag him over to the char-grill, and use his face to clean the carbon off it. You kill and mangle my steak, but serve your roast beef raw. Please, someone help me. All of this occurred as a figment of my imagination, and before I knew it, I had been presented with a plate of still breathing fat, I thought, if were an Eskimo, I could make a lantern out of this piece of throbbing blubber on my plate.

I moved along, made up for it in yorkies and peas. I went and sat myself down next to the vegetarians. If I can't enjoy it, then noone else can either. By this stage I felt like dropping the blubber into someones lap, cheffie really does bring out the best in me.

At least the pudding table brought comfort to my wrangled soul. There before me was a tray of bread and butter pudding, next to that, tetrapack custard. The universe exhaled, my solar plexus restored to its former convex state. I Homer J'd my way through pudding and let the world become a thing of the past, I was safe, until tomorrow.

Shock and panic. Woke up 20 minutes late this morning. That's not really a problem, since i am always half an hour early. Walking down Elgin Ave, towards the underground, I see flashing blue lights, ah, police i think, I'll tell you later how I came to learn the difference between blue and red flashing lights..

As I get closer to the underground, I can see that fire engines are parked there, closing off entrances and being generally dominating, as huge red chunks of metal with flashing lights and sharp corners are. There is a London Underground staff member, peering through the latticed gate, like a muppet, telling me that there is a fire in the tunnel.

I contemplate turning back and heading for the number 6 bus. Not my first choice, although i prefer to bus it, it's too late, in order to use the bus effectively, i'd have to have been at the bus stop at 7:30, it is now 7:50. I decide to walk up to St Johns Wood underground. It's a fair walk, best case scenario, the Jubilee line is working overtime and I get down to Westminster in time, 3 stops to Blackfriars, sorted.

Best case scenario? Do I need to remind myself that I live in London - pessimism has been welded into the English DNA, a remedy to that natural state of expecting the worst is as simple as 'musn't grumble, it could be worse'. So, on entrance to St Johns Wood station, the machine that accepts bank notes and cards is, yes, you guessed it... closed. I turn my attention to the window where I will have to deal with a human sales interface, not optimal, but I don't actually have a choice. I find myself in third place on the grid. The woman in poll position is speaking, I tune in, I hear speak of stolen wallets and cards, new cards without PIN numbers. I can sympathise, owing to my recent misfortune of being the victim of ATM fraud. Honey, don't expect the human sales interface to understand or actually assist you, I realise that the sign clearly states assistance, but it's really there for the blue color contrast against the red tiles.

There is a problem with her new cards. I hear her tell the ticket selling muppet in the window that she doesn't mind waiting, but could he help the rest of the queue. I don't need to tell you what he said, do I? I'll repeat something I said not too long ago;

Honey, don't expect the human sales interface to understand or actually assist you, I realise that the sign clearly states assistance, but it's really there for the blue color contrast against the red tiles.

20 minutes in the queue, the gaumless assistant is still infinitely preplexed by the little square plastic thing that can pay for things. I had begun to wonder why there were 3 windows for human sales interface zombies, 2 of them were blacked out, the one, as we know, is having a 2001: a Space Oddyssey moment with the little square plastic thing. A commotion behind me reveals that they are actually going to open another window for assistance, I get my ticket and make my way to the platform.

I let 3 trains go without me. There is no way I am going to subject myself to standing in a carraige where I would have to fight for breath. I would never actually be able to step into the carraige anyway. The only way would be to grab hold of the hand-rails and pull yourself in. The 4th train comes soon enough, still no place to sit, but at least there is space to stand. I am understandably vexed by this stage and very close to the edge. What i'm really hoping for, is to find a random hand-granade in my pocket. As we go through a few more stations, the carraige becomes full. I develop a thing about people, there personal objects and the space required for those objects. Bags and newspapers are the big offenders. There's a suited wanker, mid to late 30's - they come off a production line, there's a multitude of them. The closer you get to the city, Bank, Westminster, Embankment, Fleet street, the more of them you'll find. I need to find the mould for 'suited wanker with newspaper #1' and smash it. This guy actually has his Financial Times news paper on maximum fold-out, there is a harmless old man in front of him, wanker is actually using the back of old man's head to prop his newspaper up. I am remaining calm as a hindu cow to stop myself from ramming the newspaper down wanker's throat. In a way, I wish it was me. I am ready to ambush someone like wanker with a barrage of Learmont temper, before I take it out on someone who doesn't really deserve it.

Despite all of this, I am still the first one in the office. My bacon roll has a mark on it, a finger dent, I don't want to see visible evidence that a human has been involved in the making of my roll. I let it slip, breath deeply and forgive them, for they know not what they do. I remember my blog, it's purpose, to let me rant and vent and hurl abuse at nobody and nothing, nice and safe.

Word of the day:

in·com·mo·di·ous (nk-md-s) adj.

Inconvenient or uncomfortable, as by not affording sufficient space.

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.

Another empty coffee. That means a trip to the canteen, 2 floors down. It's worth it, coffee always is. Christ, I'm lazy, there's an elevator. I feel like shit, my head is in a fish bowl and as I walk, my world does the sloshing from side to side, I'm suffering from some kind of sensory inertia - i am 2 seconds ahead of my world, feeling terribly out of sync.

Spoke to the bank yesterday about a refund on moneys pilfered. They sent forms for me to fill in, documenting anything strange. There was actually one machine that had a card slot that protruded about 2 inches. I remember the guy in front of me struggling to get his card out. The same happened to me, I just put it down to great British ATM design.

One of my colleagues is an ex banker. When I mentioned the card slot, the first thing he said was 'card scanners'. Barclays could not guarantee that I will get my money back. If I don't, I will have to take out a loan to get back on par. The bank can fly into buildings if they think I am going to take out the loan with them. I'll take that business elsewhere.

I broke the bathroom mirror yesterday. Phil was quick to point out that I now had yet another 7 years of bad luck, that means i'm Dirty Harry dried up dog shit till i'm 38, i'll just dry up 'n blow 'way. My manager, Louise gave me the antidote, I am to bury a shard deep down, in my garden. Do I then sacrifice ten vestal virgins at stone henge? Then there's the ladder we walked under all summer in order to gain access to the roof. Well, I bet Phil's only too happy about the fact that the laddered stairway to rooftop BBQ heaven is right outside my bedroom. I am being primed for a massive cosmic battering.

Am I turning into a good English, half man half druid, spodge of pagan, is that a may-pole in your pocket? Trying to cure my cold with tasty little sugar balls called Ignatia 6c homeopathic remedy. I don't think you can call it medicine, well, i suppose you can, medicinal science versus remedy. There must as be as much science to a badger type man with a pendulum, spurting latin and casting spells, consulting his mossy green rocks, who know the 'little people' as there is to constructing morphine in a laboratory.

Acronym of the day:

PEBCAK Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard

Monday cannot die early enough. I feel a cold coming on. In my cleaning frenzy, i packed just about everything in the house away, and if it couldn't be packed, it made it's way into one of the lucky-packet-from-hell cupboards in the kitchen. I haven't seen Silverback the mouse of late. There was a time when Phil would comment on the Silverback's nonchalance; fat and carefree, waddling across the carpet, waiting for him to wink at you. Maybe Silverback needed some excitement in his life, and braved one of the kitchen cupboards and got ambushed and killed by rogue tupperware.

The flat has been almost entirely swept under the carpet, it's a delicate equilibrium, a very sensitive ecosystem, part of which is destroyed about twice a week when one of us does the washing up. I tidied up, and then couldn't find something, typical. It doesn't help much us not having proper names for things, or calling things as though they might have been named by Captain Obvious; there's the fiesty little number that froths your milk for you, what the fuck is it actually called, 'whizzy thing'. We have 'Pokey thing', 'Hitty thing' which is actually a state of mind more than it is a MIDI keyboard. It's like Homer J. asking Marge for the 'metal thing that digs food' - we aspire, but we have far to go. Hence my word for today.

Back on track, i'm coming down with something, I think it would be a good idea to get the juicer I packed away yesterday out and start getting juiced up, on healthy drinky thing.

A cat would have solved Silverback's adrenaline addiction very quickly, or an air rifle - i could have bought night vision goggles and kept a snipers eye on the lounge floor. I'd love the air rifle though, there are noisy fuckers, drunks, who roam the streets at night, like last night, rummaging through peoples garbage and throwing it about the place. The sound of a lead pellet whirring past the ear would cause them to pause, but only pause, its when they get something stuck in their neck that confusion would really kick in, 2, 3 will have them running. If only.

Monday morning... have to get to the bank, if I don't get my money back, I'm crispy roasted bread! Went round to Tor and Andy for dinner last night; gammon and neeps, yum. Contacted a guy called James Learmont, he owns the learmont.com domain - i asked him for it and he gave me the Charlton Heston answer... 'from my cold dead hands', i can understand, everyone's got their price though. Apparently he works just around the corner from me, so we have arranged to get together for a swift one or two and speak Learmont. Other Learmonts are more willing to part with information with regard to genealogy than my own. My Learmonts are useless, I am having to rely on some eccentric old badger in Bayswater, who knows the Learmont history - how he fits in i don't know, and then there are the two James Learmonts who are so willing to help and get together.

I went for a job interview a few months back, the guy who interviewed me, asked me if I'd ever heard of Learmontov - 'sure', I said, impressed that he had knowledge of the Learmont scribe who was contracted to work in the halls of the Tsar. He asked if I knew how Learmontov met his fate.

Learmontov was challenged to a duel. His opponent thought it would make for a more interesting duel if they fired their weapons up into the air, and should a projectile hit one of them, the other would win. Learmontov agreed, foolishly, and fired his weapon into the air. I don't need to mention that the other guy then blew Learmontovs head off. Like shooting fish in a barrel, at point blank range, with an elephant gun, in the head, twice.

I knew there and then that I would not get the job, and I was right.

Word of the day:

hebe·tudi·nous (-tdn-s, -tyd-) adj. Dullness of mind; mental lethargy.