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.

Ready Steady Go-Slow

It's Thursday, today.  And thank the baby Jesus for it.  It's been a very long week thus far.  I've spent the majority of it emerging from a heavy cold.  This has left me physically bereft.  I spend all my time either sleeping or yawning.  This leaves scant resource for gadding about and witticisms.  The time, when in a slough of physical despond like this, passes ever so slowly.  I'm hanging on by my fingernails for the weekend to scoop me up in its frivolous arms do the necessary.

It comes to something when your life is a bitter grind for the most part, with only the occasional low-octane piss-up at the weekends to lighten the load.  I keep thinking of pastures greener when it's like this, of working with my hands, of joining a circus or taking up base-jumping.  The trouble is I'll read a similar lament by some pampered wining lifestyle columnist in The Times on Saturday and realise that these thoughts are wholly unoriginal and, therefore, not worth acting on for a confirmed contrarian like myself.  I'll then set my jaw against the notion, and determine to stick to the largely meaningless bourgeois existence....that'll show 'em!

Your eyelids are growing heavy...

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?