Where have you been all my life?

Well, hello there.  Sorry, I've been a bit slack for the last six months or so, but I had a tumble from (one of) my bike(s) and felt disinclined to jot whilst recuperating.  Still, I've mostly cupered now, a little impressive scar tissue notwithstanding, so here goes nuttin'.  Again.

Without wishing to sound like a broken gramophone record, I'm still in the midst of the middle-aged ennui doldrums.  Still in the same lacklustre job and still in the same house.  The house is part of the problem actually.  It's lovely and in a lovely street in a lovely area.  It's perfect for our needs, comfy and well-appointed.  So, we won't be moving again - well, not for a while anyways.  And this has thrown my life, or rather what's left of it, into sharp relief.  I can't continue to plough on like this until they cart me off in the back of a private ambulance and start liquidising my meals.  I need adventure - spiritual, sexual, intellectual and actual.

But where to find it?  For years I thought the classified ads in Private Eye might provide the answer, but never had the nerve to answer any.  I assumed, probably rightly actually, that you had to have been to Oxford and come down without a degree to do so without looking like an upstart.

Kraut-shock

Phew - I'm tired today.  We got back from Berlin yesterday afternoon and I've been in a coma since.  This is strange and unhelpful when you consider I've done nothing but eat and sleep well since touching down in Blighty.  We weren't late or anything.  We got home at 5pm.

I am really spent however.  I think it's a combination of physical fatigue and boredom.  I really really really am bored.  Screaming ab-dabs self-harm bored.  I know I am the master of my own ship and should apply my talents (such as they be) to changing matters for the better.  But I can't be our-souled.  So there.

I have another day off tomorrow.  Missus O and I have to attend to matters with a couple of friends of ours that I'm not at liberty to discuss until this time tomorrow.  The cloak-and-dagger miasma makes the whole episode sound vaguely sinister and sordid.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It's a joyous and sober event.  You'll just have to read tomorrow's entry for full details.  Actually, I might not get the opportunity to scribble an entry tomorrow, but I will do soonest.

All I can think of at the moment is going home, curling up into a ball and sleeping like a lttle pigeon.  Not the stuff of which legends are made, is it?  I don't have the energy to argue the point.  Perhaps some modernist poetry would help?  No, I thought not either.

Beef Jesus

There's no place like home.  That's true, but there's also no place like a Turkish prison, so the absolute value of the observation is questionable.  

Mrs O and I are just back from a wonderful week in Spain (sorry, Catalonia).  I had a gerr-ate time, and now of course I must atone for my sins by being miserable and questioning the worth of my quotidian surroundings and duties.

I was actually looking forward to getting home this time.  September is a time when you make your peace with the world, if you're from the northern hemisphere that is.  When the earth initially hurtles past the halfway point in its summer route around the sun, you rail against the shortening of the days.  But very quickly, Knut-style, you realise the futility of this position, and embrace the changing of the seasons.  I'd been planning winter jaunts as a result of this change of heart, but even this wasn't enough the protect me from the outrageous tedium that my job entails.

The brain and the face are in accord as I type: life is grim.  All is fatigue and ennui.  Still, a glass of sherry might pep me up, so it's not all ill-tidings.

Get Fresher for the Weekend

Here's a thought: what about a two-day working week, punctuated by a five-day weekend?  Yes, yes, we can all see the obvious, licentious advantages.  But think a little deeper.  The main advantage of a two-day working week, it seems to me, would be to clarify the mind of all the protagonists.

I contend that most of the (ahem) work in the modern office environment is obfuscation.  It's not productive or intelligent; it's simply process.  Process was invented by unimaginative office-Johnnies who have too much time on their mitts.  What better way to fill the void than with empty-headed meetings?  The clichéd apotheosis of this type of person is of course the career civil servant - Terri Coverley from "The Thick of It" for example.

But, somehow over the years, process broke free of its chains and started to wag the dog.  And as process is divorced from actual productive work, it engenders ennui.  A little is easy to deal with, as long as it is tempered with actual productive work.  However, when the balance gets out of cock, the subject is overwhelmed with feelings of intense discomfort.  Consider for example how many times you've found yourself in the executive washroom, grimacing and rubbing your eyes like an over-tired 3-year-old.  Hmm...a lot, isn't it?

If we were limited to a two-day working week, all the flim-flam would fall by the wayside.  There simply wouldn't be time for it.  We'd all be full-on, trying to get the in tray denuded before Sunday evening.  You wouldn't attend a meeting unless your life depended on it.  And even then, it would last ten minutes, tops.  There'd be no coffee and biscuits, that's fo shizzle.

Yes, it would be intense and pressured.  But as the work would be productive and the fruits of your labours patent to you, there would be enormous satisfaction also.  The boredom and associated fatigue would dissipate.  That strange feeling you get at work currently that you ascribe to chronic fatigue is nothing of the sort; that's why it magically disappears when you leave the office.  It's chronic tedium.  Imagine your life without it.  You would be truly alive.

Friday evenings would be a little glum; we'd all sit around at home watching "Last of the Summer Wine", wishing it was Sunday.  But that's a small price to pay.

I say we go for it.  Anyone?

Bonjour tristesse

So, back to work.  I've been charged with doing just two days' work this week.  Two days - that's all.  And yet I am struggling after 6 hours of day one.  Jaysus wept, it's hard.  I can't concentrate at all.  It's not clear why this should be; I slept well last night.  Oh, I know what it is: I'm bored incontinent.  

And while that sounds like an overstatement, it isn't.  Scientists have irrefutable proof that tedium is detrimental to the health, and can in fact kill.  Firstly it causes alpha-wave state, like being hypnotised or super-pissed.  Then the subject lapses into a persistent vegetative state (like an under-achieving turnip), and finally the heart beats so slowly that it loses internal pressure and flops over like a squid on an escalator.  Then you've had it.  Medical fact.

The trouble with tiresome work is that the temptation is to take one's slapped-arse expression home with one.  Then you have a miserable evening, notwithstanding the fact that you're not actually at work.  Great Scott!  Then all is lost.  You might as well fill your socks with Blu-Tack and leap off Beachy Head if you get to this stage.

The thing to do is to nip it in the knackers, as Malcolm Tucker so memorably put it.  Speed home and perform some trivial domestic chore to the best of your abilities.  It really works, this.  Why not iron your pants for example?  It's probably as well to remove them first.

I feel inspired all of a sudden.

Tea break's over. Back on your heads

Mrs O and I have been in Belgium for a long weekend.  Ah, what bliss was it to be alive.  We watched a bike race, drank some vee fine Belgian beers and ate a pizza géante.  Our enjoyment was heightened, I'm ashamed to confess, by the knowledge that the weather in the low countries was considerably better than in Blighty.  I should be bigger and better than this at my age.  The fact that I'm not makes me think I'll never now grow-up fully.  Oh, well, there are worse crosses to bear.

The trouble with joyous weekends away is that it throws the working week into sharp relief.  As you flail away at the keyboard on your first morning back, the dissolute part of your brain keeps reminding you that you're wasting your life.  "Why not live in a hotel in Belgium full-time?  Oh, we'd cope.  Don't be so negative."  I was so tired I almost gave into the rotter today.  Tomorrow will be better.  Yes, yes, I'm sure that's right.

"The sun'll come out tomorrow...betcha bottom dollar etc."

T D M

I'm bored today.  It's a much underestimated affliction, boredom.  It really lays one low.  It generally gets short-shrift from high profile head-shrinkers and dramatists because it doesn't come equipped with the usual eye-catching mental and physically flailing normally associated with mental maladies.  But make no mistake - it's a dangerous foe.  It really takes the joy out of life.

I've been a sufferer for as long as I can remember.  Shortly after I learned to speak, I started haranguing my mother.  I would complain incessantly at her about being bored, and demand satisfaction.  I always had this semi-formed notion that they was a clever workaround to avoid it, like paracetamol for the ego.  But apparently there isn't.  That was a lesson hard-learned.

I don't ever remember my little playmates being like this; they all seemed content enough with a combination of Playschool and Fuzzy Felt.  The sufferer becomes an island in situations like this.  You feel divorced from your peers and polite society as a whole.  They seem to be enjoying themselves, which makes them the enemy.  And this just makes the sorry business of getting on with the rotters and with life itself even more tiresome.

The funny thing is I've always held on to that youthful belief that there is a salve for boredom; I just need to continue the quest for it.  I've worked through umpteen hobbies, drugs, careers, body-modifications, religions and esoterica during this fruitless journey through life.  Nothing yet.  If I should happen across something, however, I'll let you know.  Perhaps half a dozen espressos might do it?

Post Mortem

I've been away for a long weekend at the Cambridge folk festival, which is why no posts. I'm back at my desk now however. I don't think it's overstating matters to say that I'm absolutely shattered. Physically, mentally, spiritually, and financially I'm at my lowest ebb. This is a short, bleak post as a consequence. Sorry. I really don't have a positive or mildly amusing thing to say.

Thierry Ennui

Blimey, I am getting lazy. It's been five days since the last update. I'm not likely to win any literary prizes with output like that.

I'm still beavering away at the new role, you'll be pleased to here. I tried a different tack yesterday: I decided to apply myself to the task at hand - much like a properly socialised adult might in fact. It worked to a certain extent. I did feel better about myself - so much so that I went home and got pissed.

I'm so bored to could evaporate, I tell you. How do ordinary people cope? Answers on a carte postale please.