You had one job to do

I work in a very high-profile office block in London.  Everyone knows it by sight, and it's not exactly an old building.  And yet, it's one of the most uncomfortable environments I've every worked in.  

The plumbing is hopeless for a kick-off.  The toilets are getting constantly blocked as a consequence.  Now, I appreciate it's a high-rise, and one shouldn't take for granted what a challenging engineering undertaking it is to provide showers and karzeys that high up.  But, as Mrs O pointed out when I was acting the apologist for the bogs once,  "It's not the first skyscraper ever built, is it?".  Quite so.  They did have a wealth of empirical data to draw on in order to get the job right this time.

Also, the facking heating is useless.  It has just two settings: "engine room of Mississippi paddle steamer" or "igloo".  So when someone phones up to remonstrate, they simply flick from one extreme to another.  They have one of those big brass things you see on the bridges of war ships that ring when you change course.  I hate complaining - I really do - but something needs to give.  As I type, it's like a fucking greenhouse in here.  It's so soporific that jobbing bureaucracy is impossible, thereby defeating the object of the office in the first place.

I need to get out.  Permanently.  I need to get back to nature, to work with my hands...like any self-respecting midlife crisisee.  This time next year I'll probably be a lumberjack.

Form an orderly queue, laydeez.

Nothing to see here

I've not had a chance to set down any elegant pensées today.  Except that one.

Monday Monday

I'm going to write today about Monday.  Today is Tuesday, so I have enough distance to muse objectively about the start of the working week.  On Monday itself I'm generally in too much of a fug and slough of despond to do anything vaguely intelligent and/or creative.  I don't like Mondays, to quote Bob Geldof.

'Twas ever thus with me.  My earliest memories include a dread fear of the return of "the Scottish day".  Is this because I'm congenitally lazy?  I suppose that must have something to do with it.  But it's not the whole story.  I even get a bit down on m-day when I'm on holiday.  I feel depressed for the locals.  That, we can't ascribe to idleness; I don't do anything more strenuous than snorkelling when I'm abroad.  No, it's because Monday is shit, and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional and/or a weasel.

But away with negativity.  Today is Tuesday, which means the weekend is hoving into view over the horizon.  Oh, yes, it is.

Well, I beg to differ.

Fear of failure

Well, I was as good as my word and went to Orient's final home game of a frankly wretched 2014-15 campaign on Saturday.  We were a shambles.  It's just as well they slashed the ticket prices because I'd have been spitting blood had I shelled out twenty quid to watch that sheight.  We were actually worse than at the first game of the season, and I thought that an all-time low at the time.

I suppose one should take succour from the fact that we were playing high-flying Sheffield United and still manged to bag a point, but they were having an off-day so had we been any use, we'd have turned them over.  The game (if I might dignify the players' efforts by employing this word) was an absolute howler.  Route-one football, poorly executed.  At least it was a nice day.

Come the end, it was clear we were doomed.  Every other team around us won, against the odds, and our fate is now out of our hands.  The mood among the fans is one of resignation.  We don't deserve to stay up; it would be daylight robbery on one of the other blameless clubs if we did.  No, we made our bed, shat on the pillow, and now we must lie in it.  The best we can hope for it a steamroller season next year.  Come up as champions with 100 points.  I'll be there for some of it....again.  The trouble is I've been doing this for 30 years and I'm less emotionally and mentally robust than I used to be.  It takes its toll.

Up The Os, as we say in my neck of the woods.

Town and gown

Well, it's the cusp of another weekend.  I've got several items in the diary over the next couple of days, football tomorrow and off to the Globe on Sunday for a production of The Merchant Of Venice.  It's at times like this that the value of living in a city becomes apparent to one.  Yes, it can be frantic, but the diversions available to are huge.

I grew up in east London, and it was the received wisdom when I was a nipper, and probably still is, that as soon as one was able, you should up-sticks and move out to the country.  By country I mean west Essex of course.  Our faith in the desirability of Essex was blind.  None of us knew the place.  It was simply the closest "not-London" to where we lived, and therefore better.

I nearly gave into this fad myself a few years ago.  The wife and I were that close to buying a house out in the sticks.  It was a lovely house in a lovely university town nestling on the banks of picturesque river.  We took the precaution of visiting the place on a nondescript February weekend.  We stayed over in a B&B, and so were able to spend the evening in our soon-to-be home town.  And that's what derailed the whole project.  The pubs at night were a very different proposition from the same establishments during the day.  During the day the place was full of day trippers.  The pubs were convivial, packed with pleasant people and their gun dogs.  At night they were full of bored and drunk young locals.  I thought to myself then: if we lived here, we'd never go out after dark.  And we like going out after dark; it's "our thing".

So we pulled out and stayed in London.  And here we are still.  

 - Taxi!  Take me something stimulating and nearby, would you?  And don't spare the horses.

He's got football pie all down his shirt

My local team, Leyton Orient, are on the cusp of relegation to League Two.  Despite the high falutin' name, League Two is the lowest professional division available to English football teams.  It's the Poundland of the beautiful game.  And it's traditionally a notch below even Orient's modest abilities.

We've been in League Two before of course, but our natural habitat is League One, the middle of League One to be precise.  We tend to get a nosebleed when we stray too close to the promotion places.  We led the division for nearly the entire season last year, and we're still reeling from the trip, which in some way explains our shocking descent to Aunt Sally status this time around.

Relegation this year will, as it always does, cause a schism among the faithful - between those who want heads on platters and the Pollyanna set, who would turn up and cheer even if the team decided to play inside a nuclear reactor.

I have some sympathy for the moaners on this one.  The club has been laughably mismanaged this year, and this has led to lacklustre performances on the pitch.  Also, dropping into League Two means there's no scope for a repeat performance next year.  There's no safety net down there.  If you slip up, you're out of the professional game, and that is unacceptable.

It's true that some Orient supporters thrive on complaining.  You can hear them screaming for the Government to step in and compulsiry purchase the club after back-to-back goalless draws.  But everyone will be in a foul mood next season, myself included.

Fix it or I'm off

The internet connection in the office is playing up today.  It was screwed from the moment I logged-on this morning.  As is the way with most bureaucrats these days, my job is almost entirely reliant on my computer's being connected the the web, so I'm about as much use as a 4-stone bouncer.

Worryingly, when we asked IT support what the story was at 9am this morning, they were blissfully unaware there was a problem.  Presumably as long as Tetris still loads, as far as they're concerned everything's hunky-dory.  Once they been appraised of matters, though, they snapped into action.  We all received an email at 1pm, acknowledging that there was indeed a problem and that it hadn't been fixed.  Two facts I didn't need confirming.

The whole day has been like wading through treacle with Samuel fucking Beckett.

Row row row your boat...

My neighbours had a blazing row late last night.  It was about midnight, and I was languishing in bed, waiting for Mr Brain to finish the spin cycle so I might get some sleep.  I heard a woman shouting.  The street was very quiet and the voice was low and far off sounding, so I assumed it was someone down the road.  "It's a domestic, sarge."  I ignored it.

Moments later it started up again.  This time I was in no doubt that a woman was in real distress, so I got up to investigate.  I peered out of an upstairs window, but couldn't see anyone in the street.  I listened hard and was able to determine that the voices (a man had joined in the hue and cry by this point) were those of my near neighbours.  They're friends too, so it was doubly distressing.

The verbal altercation didn't last long.  The male half of the ensemble was hurled, with menaces, from the nuptial home into the street after about five minutes.  He has a motorcycle, my neighbour, which he eventually rode off on.  I can only hope against hope that he wasn't wearing his jim-jams at the time.

The events, which I suppose have a certain comic element once the dust has settled, upset me greatly.  I cannot abide domestic upheaval.  I developed a real phobia for it when I was a boy.  My parents didn't argue much, but when they did, it was horrifying to me.  I don't think I've ever got over it completely.  But what are parents supposed to do?  When passions run high, you can't hide it.  Children know this better than adults.  Their days are are crammed with tears, laughter, boredom, fatigue, every extreme emotion in the range - much more so than any adults.  When a child is upset, he or she leave the world in no doubt as to the matter.  Consequently, they can read moods better than we suppose.  It's no use hiding your anger then; the kids sense it anyway.

I hope things settle down.  I know some people swear by a good row, but I've only ever found fury to be a destructive emotion.  I realised when I was very young that I have a ferocious temper, and would do well to keep a lid on it.  I suppose suppressing one's emotions like this entails some cost, but it's better than the alternative, which is opprobrium and ASBOs.

May the force majeure be with you

The wife and I went to see Force Majeure yesterday.  It's a compelling new Swedish film about a young family on a skiing holiday in France.  Sounds great, 'eh?  That's not what it's about, incidentally.  It's actually about the tension between the person one pretends to be and the one you actually are.  The one that's controlled by the brain stem exclusively.  You stripped of language, learning, mores, fatherhood, fraternity - everything.  Just you, whoever you is.  That one.

In this highly developed epoch we call home, this id-driven grablous monkey self is more or less buried, so we give him little thought.  He does emerge occasionally, when one is angry, stressed or tired for example.  He's the one who gives voice to that florid invective you hurl at other motorists when you've been cut up in traffic.  These episodes are short, and when over, we can generally explain away our outré behaviour by pretending we weren't ourselves for an instant.  "I'm so sorry.  I don't know what came over me; I lost myself for a moment."  Au contraire.  That snarling Tasmanian devil in slacks is you.  It's more you than the various roles you've clothed yourself with over the years.

This is the theme the film examines.  The father of the family in the story finds to his horror that in extremis he is a coward.  He is cowardly to such an extent indeed that he flees from his wife and children, abandoning them to their fates.  But it's a false alarm and no-one is hurt.  He has to return to the scene.  The shame starts to eat away at him.  How can he play this role with any conviction when he now knows it's just that, a role.

His wife and kids give him short shrift an' all.

It all makes for very uncomfortable viewing.  But it's a wonderful film for all that.  It's beautiful, intelligent and thought-provoking, which is rarity these days.

Beer and skittles

Oh, hello there.  It's the weekend finally.  Let joy be unconfined.  I must do something with my free time this weekend.  The trouble is I don't have a plan, and a man without a plan is like parrot with a rubber beak - amusing but unlikely to get on in life.

I do have plenty of domestic chores to perform, but this is really a last resort.  I only turn to these when I need to bolster the old self-esteem a bit - like a weeping woman doing five sit-ups after having eaten an entire Swiss roll for lunch.  And I think the weather's supposed to be okay this weekend too, so it'd be nice to get in amongst the great unwashed for a bit.

I could really do with a training ride on the velocipede, but that involves sweating and I'm not really in the perspiration zone at the moment.  That's a May thing.

First things first - I'll ride home and start drinking.  I'll work on the plan later.

Kipper Bisto and the fatigue monkeys

Good news on the dry week front (see previous entry): not a drop of strong liquour passed my parched lips hier soir.  I used to be diligent at not drinking during the week, and what's more I enjoyed it.  It gives the week some variety, you sleep better and it makes the weekend special (not like a special school).  In fact, I don't know why I let the habit slip.  But I did.

Actually, I do know.  When you realise you have no narcotic addiction to booze, it loses its threat and you develop a cavalier attitude to its use.  You know you can stop.  So you don't.  And drink means one doesn't have to think about what to do of an evening.  I have a pathological dislike of not having something to do, not in a deeply irritating derring-do way.  I don't go base-jumping or strangle bears "in order to feel alive", but I must have something to divert my attention from my fate.  And finding compelling pastimes is difficult.  One runs out of inspiration and energy.  That's where booze slots in.  It gives you something to do.  With its absence, other, previously less thrilling, evening rituals become more important.  Dinner for example.  I do look forward to my supper when I'm not drinking.  Yum.

I shall persevere.

Ein Zwei Dry

I'm attempting to observe a dry week, this week.  It's tough though because the weather is gorgeous in London at the mo, and one's instinct once the barometer hits "lovely" is to sit in a secluded beer garden with the good lady wife and drink white wine.  However, one must be diligent.  Drinking late in the evenings plays havoc with my sleep.  You think you're asleep, but in fact your body is churning away like a prone, flesh-coloured steam engine.  Not good.

And I'm still drawing a blank on my attempts to master basic electronics.  Why are electronics buffs so miserly when it comes to doling out free advice on the internet?  Are they fearful I'll take their precious hobby and make it my own?  That must be it.  It would be more fashionably dressed if I did, let's face it.  Mind you, Stephen Hawking could probably say the same.

Rotters.

Mr Motivator

Goodness me, I'm lacking motivation at present.  I have a project to complete at work, which I didn't want to do in the first place, and consequently it ails me.  So now I'm dancing round the matter like of a 5 year old trying to avoid eating the cabbage on his dinner plate.  I've pushed it around and tried to hide it beneath the mash, but it's still there.  And there'll be no leaving the table until it's been ingested.  So I need to hold my nose and get on with it I suppose.  But you know what 5 year olds are like.  We won't be told.

Middle-age grunge

Missus O and I went to see "Montage Of Heck" yesterday afternoon.  It's the story of Kurt Cobain's life, from his troubled childhood in Washington to his troubled adulthood.  It's a turbulent tail of course, and Kurt's travails are well-documented.  The director, Brett Morgen, decided instead to let those close to him give their versions of events and then to splice this reportage with the singer's own writings and recordings.  Cobain was a prolific recorder of sound montages, and, helpfully for biographers, also kept extensive notebooks that detailed his feelings and plans.

It was tough viewing.  There was a dreadful inevitability about Kurt's demise.  He was too sensitive to survive the macerating effects of stardom.  What surprised me, although I know the band's story well, was the speed of their ascent.  They went from promising local band in the north west United States to latter day Beatlemania in a matter of months.  Those who knew and loved Kurt feared for him, especially his mother.  She recalls the telling and prophetic day that he called at her house with a cassette of the then unreleased Nevermind.  She realised in an instant it would be huge and the potential cost it would exact from her diffident, emotionally-needy son, telling him "Oh, my god - you'd better buckle up."

She was right of course.  Kurt simply couldn't stand being famous.  He appeared bewildered.  People he didn't know were praising him.  For someone who felt rejected after his parents' divorce, this was too much.  He become reclusive, suspicious and paranoid.  His drug use escalated and we all know the rest.

The hardest thing to take from Kurt's death is his vulnerability.  He was so very childlike.  One felt compelled to nurture and protect him.  But it was clear that by the time the world knew his name, he was beyond redemption.

White noise

I was thinking about ELO the other day.  There was a programme about Jeff Lynne on the telly last weekend, in which all his rock star mates lionised the world's most famous Brummie, and Jeff was pictured in his palatial California home, writing and recording.  I must admit, like most people in their 40s, I have a soft spot for The Electric Light Orchestra.  Their literate, assessable music was everywhere when I was a nipper.  It was optimistic-sounding and well written.  Lovely.

The trouble is when I listen to the band now, as a grizzled adult, there is vague feeling of dissatisfaction.  It's like eating Spacedust; your body's not fooled for an instant.  You're swallowing something with calories in it, but your stomach is crying out for nutrition.  And that, sadly, is what happens to my mind when listening to ELO.  It just washes over my brain without sinking in.  It should be more satisfying.  It's still good music, but it lacks something...a little 'heart' perhaps?  This pains me because I admire JL hugely; he's a great songwriter.

The same thing happens with The Police, but that's less troubling as I never cared for the blond ponces much anyway.  The Police are the exemplar of bands that despite having sold gazillions of records, leave a scarcely vapour trail in history's sky (nice metaphor, me!).  When's the last time you heard them on the radio?  Exactly.  How many people still buy their albums?  Never and none.  And why?  Because they too lack heart or authenticity.  

I suppose that's it.  If something is heartfelt and is done with integrity, then even if one hates it, it's still preferable to glib.  The professional haircuts in the music papers (Google 'music papers' if you're under 30) used to bemoan Abba lacking passion, but that's to misread the situation.  Abba laid their lives bare; their sex lives, infidelities, domestic arrangements - all were co-opted as material for their songs.  But they are educated, middle-class Swedes, so their art, as with most Scandinavian art, has a detachment, a certain distance.  That's a Scandinavian trait, and Abba's work must be judged in light of this.  There's also a huge amount of self-serving posturing in the journalists' position on this - the unfashionable end of pop.  Abba are and always will be effortlessly uncool, and the NME and Melody Maker could not forgive them this.

But, think about it: people love Abba, still.  The work isn't glib and disingenuous; it's heartfelt.  It's like Kraftwerk.  Are they cold?  They should be.  But they're not.  They mean it, and that speaks to people.

Burt Cocaine

There's much excitement chez moi at the moment at the prospect of a film about the life of Kurt Cobain, Montage Of Heck, which opens this weekend.  The reviews look great, and for mosh pit denizens of my vintage, KC is a nonpareil musical figure anyways, so that's a win:win.  The missus loves the whole subject and period too.  It's redolent of A-level results, long summer days and the early years of college.  What-is-not-to-un-dislike? as we say at the coalface of po-mo.

Other than that there's not much to report.  I am on the lookout of a compelling hobby.  The shortlist has been whittled down to two finalists: home brewing and electronics.  

I used to do a bit of HBing when I was a student.  There was an economic imperative then; I was skint and constantly thirsty.  Now I have plenty of disposable income for grog, but considerably less time.  And it's a time-heavy hobby.  Also, the trouble is I can't actually recall if I enjoyed the process of brewing.  Or was it simply the fruits of those labours that bring a rose-coloured image to my mind's eye?  The entry level costs in terms of equipment and hassle are high, so if I commit and it's as dull as fuck, I'm lumbered.

Electronics is pretty good in terms of the outlay and its practical benefits.  However, there is a lot to learn, and the pastime does attract nerds.  Yes, it does.  They're generally better socially adjusted and less troubling to the authorities than sci-fi fans, say, but they are geeky nonetheless.

I'll think on.

Fings ain't what they used to be

There's a programme on the telly at pres. called "Back In Time For Tea".  The premise is that an ordinary suburban family, who happen to live 50 yards away from yours truly actually, live for one week in the manner of a decade past, eating what people of the time ate and using the technology that was available then too.  There are five episodes in the series, starting in the 50s and ending next week in the 1990s.  Last night's episode took us back to the 80s, when I was in my young adult pomp.

The rather too neat meshing of the premise and and title makes me think they came up with the latter first, and worked backwards.  No matter, it's very entertaining stuff.  The producers hit the reality TV mother lode with the family they picked; they're perfect, unpretentious, intelligent, genuinely funny and also very game.  They take the whole thing seriously enough to enter into the spirit of the age with gusto - even the children.  And going back in time does involve some very real material privations, so the sacrifice of the youngsters is admirable.

The programme is unexpectedly enlightening too.  It shows that most of the major lifestyle tropes that we associate with a particular era are driven by a technical innovations.  The 60s saw the household introduced to nascent convenience food, increased consumer durables and the subsequent invention of the teenager.  The 70s saw mothers forced into the workplace in increasing numbers due to the dire economic situation.  This drove the need for more pre-prepared, convenience meals.  Iceland and Bejams really took off in this decade.  And the 1980s was the era of the microwave.  I'd forgotten that people were actually advised to roast chickens in microwaves in the 1980s, because it was quick.  Unfortunately, the bird came out cooked, but the colour of porridge.  No matter though because you can simply then smother it in Marmite.  Yum Yum.

The odd thing about last night's episode is that it made me feel all nostalgic, which is strange because I hated the 80s.  It was the period when I came of age, but objectively it was not a pleasant time to be young.  Unemployment was endemic and the culture was quite fractured and violent as I recall.  I don't recall the music of the 80s with any great affection.  It was The Jesus And Mary Chain or Johnny Hates Jazz, neither of which I had any time for.  The Smiths were there at the beginning of course, but they burned out quickly, albeit brightly.

The fact that the programme was filmed in the very streets I grew up in probably helped my misty-eyed rememberances.  It just goes to show I suppose that we all mythologise our own pasts.  Now I've realised this, I might rework mine to include a bit more derring-do and gymnastic shagging than the current iteration.  If Clare Grogan reads this, I apologise in advance.

Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé...

Missus O and I spent the long Easter weekend in Ireland, at my parents' house.  For once, the weather was absolutely spectacular.  There was scarce a cloud in the sky the whole time we were there.  It was warm too, so warm in fact that we were able to head down to the North Atlantic coast, which is about 10 miles from their home, and stand on the rocks without sou'westers and harnesses.  Normally in April that far west in Ireland you'd only find people training for Special Forces selection venturing that close to the water.  If the cold doesn't get you, the vicious swell will.  Not this weekend though.  It was lush.

Happiness really simply does boil down to the distance between hope and reality.  To give yourself the best statistical advantage of being cheery, it makes sense to adopt a pessimistic outlook.  That leaves plenty of scope for reality to be better than one anticipates.  When this happens, one's mood lightens.  The bigger the vide between espoir and actualité, the better.  It graphs as a classic eponential curve - a slight increase in the difference rendering a massive uplift in the quality of life.

The flip side of this of course is that when the empirical universe falls short of the Platonic, it grates something fierce.  Even if objectively the conditions aren't really that bad, but they are simply worse than expected, it all shite.  And, again, the larger the gap, the more pronounced one's grimace becomes.  

This weekend, the distance between the lines was huge and for the positive.  The light was splendid; I slept well, ate well, got plenty of exercise.  It was lovely.  Such was to life-affirming effect of the conditions that I even didn't have a face like a spanked arse when the alarm clock went off this morning, heralding my first day back at work.  And that, friends, takes some doing - believe me.

Doofus Wainwright

They've only taken the doors off the offices at work.  All of them.  Why?  They're going to boil them or something.  This only a week or so after we received a cod-legalese security document that we were warned to read and then sign.  I'm one of the few who did the former, and am subsequently one of the few who has yet to the latter.  It basically gives the Ps-that-B the right to sack you at a moment's notice for some actual, but trivial breech of protocol.

One of the po-faced and hysterically overwrought clauses insisted that all sensitive documentation be kept under lock and key.  How one is to achieve this in a doorless office is not made explicit.  Perhaps that will be included in the third iteration; we received the second yesterday.  That one I haven't read.  It also urged that all paperwork be shredded, which is fine if one has a shredder.  Otherwise it's a ball ache, frankly.

Anyways, all that's by-the-by for the moment as it's Easter weekend.  Four days off and nothing to do but enjoy oneself.  We're off to Ireland to visit my parents.  It's the first time we've been to their new home, which will be a nice change.  The village they used to live in was extremely remote.  It was like being adrift on a giant raft, albeit with three well-appointed pubs.  That's why rural Irish pubs are so appealing; there's literally nothing else to do once the sun goes down.  You can't walk anywhere because there are no pavements and no street lights.  And Irish motorists are very unforgiving under dark.  Like vampires.

Ain't half been some clever bar stewards

I nipped out at lunchtime, and, in spite of myself, ended up in a bookshop.  I lied that I'd have a fruit-based browse only, and not succumb to the temptation to have a half.  Ten minutes later I found myself the proud owner of The Richard Burton diaries, which runs to about 1500 pages.  It's like a 'phone book, despite being in paperback.  I don't like toting hefty tomes like this - they provoke sciatica - but I read the first couple of entries and simply had to have it.  The writing is so very elegant.

Allied to his gifts as a writer, Burton live the single most glamorous life imaginable.  When not gadding about the fleshpots of Europe and American, drinking, smoking and rutting like a Viking grandee, he would retire to the beautiful, rangy library of his Swiss home and read and write.  He was a learned and thoughtful man, RB.  He didn't bury his working-class Welsh roots too deeply, but he was a philosopher-prince when left to his own devices.  This is evident even in his childhood diary entries.  He esteemed all learning, and literature in particular.

He must have been a wilful and courageous boy to have gone against the cultural grain like this.  I dare say his interest in letters and acting attracted plenty of violent derision.  It must have taken plenty of resolve to stick it out.  I wish I'd had such a clear vision of what I wanted to do with my life at that tender age.  It simplifies so much.

Actually, I still haven't worked what I'm doing with my life.