Let the train engender strain

It's the final day of 2014.  Tonight the missus and I head to Cornwall.  We're taking the train this year.  Usually we drive, but as we're both at work today anyways, we thought South West Trains (peace be upon it) could carry us yon.  It's always a stressful endeavour, train travel.  With all due deference to Network Rail, it goes to cock more often than it doesn't.  I can't think of the last time I took a train journey in this country when all the constituent elements worked according to a preordained plan.  I must have been an infant of sorts.  Going somewhere with my parents, I dare say.  Probably in the way to my christening.

As matters stand, the service appears to be running smoothly.  But that worries me.  It could be a trick of the fates.  To offset this concern I've raided my local Waitrose and procured wine and nibbles to Caligulian excess.  So if the shit does hit the fan in any way, at least we'll be fed and watered.  For 'watered' read 'drunk'.

Happy New Year.  Or if you're an American, happy NEW year.

Puppies for sale

I bought a radiator fan the other week.  What's that?  Oh, the name pretty much nails it, to be honest.  It's a fan that sits atop a central heating radiator.  The logic is that instead of drifting slowly ceiling-wards, the heat is coerced into the middle of the room.  This heats the room up quicker, and for virtually no additional power consumption.

I haven't published any peer-reviewed findings on the matter, but anecdotally at least, I'm not sure it's doing any good.  In fact, it might be cooling the room slightly.  I know this makes no sense; the physics just doesn't stack up.  The one thing I can say is that the air coming out the front of the fan is less warm than the air emanating from the rest of the radiator.  The reason for this is unclear at this stage.  Clearly the plastic body of the fan itself is taking some of the precious.heat; perhaps it's in there?  Oh, fuck, I don't know.  My physics is about as good as Russell Brand's acting, comedy and/or thinking.  Don't get started on that twat.

Anyway, my point is I may have been the victim of marketing brouhaha, which is spectacularly annoying for one so usually canny as me.

Vigilance.  At all times, vigilance.

That was the year that was

Right, Christmas is done.  It's over.  Let it go.  It really didn't touch the sides, Christmas, this year.  Not a festive thought scudded across my brain the entire time.  We didn't watch a Bourne film, or Bad Santa - not nothing.  I used to love Christmas so much.  I really did.  Now that's gone.  Is this inevitable?  Perhaps.

I think I may have fallen for that idiotic trope of reviewing myself that people tend to do at year's end.  I'll be honest with you: I didn't like what I saw.  I have a boring, alienating job.  I don't work nearly hard enough at my interests.  I'm not thoughtful and/or dutiful.  And I drink far too much.  So, what to do?  Well, the drinking is easy to remedy.  The trouble is it then leaves a big old hole in my schedule, which is likely then to be filled with boredom.  I dread boredom, really really fear and dread it.  I've always run from its shadow.  This no doubt explains the drinking.  But I know I can't carry on as I am, so I'll just have to suck it up a bit, as they say.

Why am I bored the whole time?  Anyone?  What is boredom anyhoo?  I'll look it up.

This is interesting:

"To be bored, some scientists reasoned, 'is to be in a state of longing for activity but unaware of what it is that one desires and to look to the world to solve the impasse,'" - http://www.livescience.com/23493-why-we-get-bored.html

That's it in a nutshell.  But what to do?  It appears I have to pay attention to my thoughts and outside stimuli more.  It doesn't say how one is to do this though.  Should I take up meditation again?  I did a bit of this during the summer but packed it in as a bad job.  You guessed it: it was boring.

Shit.

 

The afternoon before Christmas...

I'm at work.  It's Christmas Eve, and, as you'd expect, the office is vee quiet.  I work for a newspaper, and Xmas Day is the one day of the year that our industry traditionally draws breath.  I'm alone in my department too.  It's an odd experience, working on days like this.  It's sort of fun, in that it's different and certainly less pressured than proper works days.  But there's also that strange feeling of missing out.  You can't help thinking that the rest of humanity is having a rare old time, necking sherry in front of a roaring open fire while Bing Crosby croons from the mantelpiece.  I'm sure the truth is catastrophically more prosaic than that.  They're all probably watching shit telly and eating Jaffa Cakes.

The plan is to leave very shortly.  I don't know what I'm planning to do with the rest of the afternoon though.  I can't go shopping without having to be restrained by by armed officers and a Taser.  And I hate watching television in the afternoons.  I find it disspiriting...and common.

I might clean the oven.  Merry Christmas.

A free window

A very short entry today (insert own joke here).  I'm off to the pictures with the missus.  Some overlooked classic from the yesteryear with Maggie Smith and Peter Ustinov.  How did that one slip by unnoticed?  Let's hope it's not a turkey.  I know it's Christmas, but the tickets weren't cheap.  It's at the NFT, which is super-jolly, so if it is a howler, at least the seats will be comfy.

Smiley High Culture

Mrs O and I went to see The Nutcracker yesterday afternoon.  Great Scot! it was fine.  Really wonderful.  Old Chai Kovski knew how to set down a choon, didn't he?  The second act in particular is an absolutely smörgåsbord of hits.

We didn't actually see it in the flesh, as t'were.  It was a live, high-definition broadcast from the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and was screened at the Greenwich Picturehouse.  The Bolshoi Ballet are renowned for their lavish and traditional productions of ballets like this one.  No searing social commentary or transposition of the action from 19th century bourgeois Russia to a housing estate in 1960s Bradford for them.  And thank God for it.  The Nutcracker is a festive treat for classical lightweights, like myself.  It's the equivalent of The Wizard Of Oz - beautifully done and timeless, but not there to challenge and/or upset the prevailing social order.  It doesn't do to fcuk about with it.  And I believe I speak for the cognoscenti there.

Yul Brynner-tide

At last!  The office has that odd festive feel.  Everyone has been champing at the bit since about 1.30pm, desperate to make an early segue without damaging his or her career prospects at the same time.  I've been trying manfully to concentrate, but who am I kidding? it's not a day for intellectual endeavour.

I'm going to scoot off in a moment and meat Mrs O for a brace of sharpeners.  Thence home to fire up the central heating.  It getting cold in London, which is annoying as it was a mild morning.  This means I've been left high and dry as regards warm clothing.  I've had to grab one of the bastard Xmas jumpers that they were handing out at work.  That should go down a storm with the trunks on the train home later.  Still, needs must...