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.