St Vitus Statistics

Oh, I hate it when a plan don't come together.

I've had the house to myself for three whole days (Ms Dive being off conferencing somewhere or other) and had constructed a schedule of male-oriented singleton activities in which to immerse myself. These were, in no particular order: the smoking of cigars; the thrashing of guitars; the eating of steak; the playing of video games; and the staying out late in the pubs.

Sunday started really rather nicely: Havanas were lit, a couple of cans of lager were imbibed and many many mutants were gunned down. This, by the way, was all carried out in my dressing gown. Brilliant.

And then, unfortunately, everything went a bit wrong. I'll not bore with details but 0300 to 0930 Monday were unpleasant. Projectile unpleasant.

Couple this with an inavoidable meeting in Bristol (note to train companies - serving cabbage in dining cars is just crass) and my week began quite horrid. The evening was lost to an 11-hour sleepathon, Tuesday evening was mainly shaped by the force-feeding of plain pasta (foie gross, if you will) but did at least see a brief rally of video gamage - after a couple of hours of reassembling the house into something resembling the state it was in when my session commenced.

Anyway: to the point: Nothing that I have endured these last three days is anything compared to that facing people in the financial sector. I never thought I'd say this (and may my ancestors forgive me) but I am finding my self feeling sorry for bankers.

A key part of my day is working through the papers - print and online - to pick up key themes and trends that are relevant to those who which pay my rent. As a result I'm almost preturnaturally aware of the different spin the various outlets put on a story - the Mirror, for instance, has carried barely a column inch on house prices the last 6-month, whilst the Mail has pretty much blocked out three pages in each edition.

Today, though, there is one, uniform conclusion across all the front pages: We are, to put it mildly, fucked.

Batten down the hatches, one and all. There's an axiom that says something along the lines that music plays louder and people dance harder in times of adversity. So in that spirit, enjoy:

Il Retourne

Not written anything for a while - and I'll not bore you with the many and manifold reasons. Suffice to say that I am a social butterfly with a massive coterie of friends to pay fealty to. Also, wage slave.

I have had a very, very random week. Many things seem to have broken in the last 7 days: laptop - smoking; phone - battered; jacket - de-lined; washing machine - ticking; tree - collapsed; line between Bristol and London - bus replacement service; diet -3 (THREE) kebabs; and most worryingly, a significant friendship - hiccup.

And last night, bizarrely, I ended up sat behind the lesser Minogue.

Pondering these things on the way in this morning (ithing - powerless) I came to the conclusion that it is far too dangerous to go outdoors this weekend. Therefore I am going to lock myself away from the world with a video game and a pizza menu.

And, in that spirit, the soundtrack:

Yawn

Why oh why did i wake at 0600 when I don't have to go to work today? I'm on leave, goddamit: I've been looking forward to a lie-in for WEEKS, and instead I've been laid out, gawping at the ceiling for half an hour.

I am not good at inactivity. This may seem an amusing contradiction to many of my friends and colleagues who have come to know and love my tendency to put things off until the last minute (see posts passim) but I'm never doing nothing. I'm just doing something I enjoy rather than things I find tedious, irrelevant and frankly, disagreeable.

What i can't do is waste time. Buses? Standing still, waiting, is a waste. I'll walk the stops. Sitting in a meeting room, small talking, until everyone arrives? Wasted time. I'm there on the dot, with papers to read if I've not managed to be last. And as for laying stationary, trying to figure out if the cracks on the roof of the bedroom are getting longer: sod that, I'm up, tea-toting and finding something to do.

But the painful truth is that there really is nothing on my list of things to do that I can crack on with at this time of the morning with out straying dangerously close to an ASBO. I'm also suffering from an excess of energy brought out by an early night and - quite possibly - having huffed the remnants of yesterday's creosote odessey when I walked past the kitchen. (For the record, I don't recall cleaning brushes with white spirit being so much fun - That's now my job). And this is despite an attack of my kappa-clad neighbours singing (SINGING) at 3am.

So here I am, tapping away at this post, which doesn't really say anything, and doesn't really serve any purpose. But it does mean that I've passed the last 10 minutes producing something rather than passively soaking up nonsensical TV dross. And in two hours time I can do something worthwhile. Like turn on the lawnmower and piss off the neighbours.

Te-Riff-Ic #9

Hell. Yeah.

Panic over. First voicemail message was from consultant wondering why not returned messages from a week ago (Answer: not received) and where the promised strategy document has gotten to? (Answer: most of weekend working on it).

One short cross-leggedly panicked moment later, the next message started: It's the client asking me to call as all plans have changed.

Third Message: consultant, again, asking me to call as client has changed mind and needs to sound me out about changes to various campaigns.

And all two hundred and sixty-four emails are system messages which have somehow replicated itself backwards and.

Only one thing for it:

Prevarication Redux

Early start today. Very early start. 0530, to be exact. No particular reason, annoyingly. Meandered my way into office at 0830.

There are three messages waiting on my voicemail. And 264 new emails in my (already cramped) inbox. Bodes this well? No.

I have been staring at the little red blinking light for 25 minutes now. I have done everything I can think of to put off picking up the messages.

So, in an attempt to punctuate the end of this period of buggering about - and in tribute to their re-emergence at Reading this weekend...

When Google Ads Attack #2

Hmmph.

Karma, it seems, has a sense of humour.

Acid Reflux. ----->

Brilliant.

Te-Riff-Ic #8

Have spend the bulk of today head down in a mahoosive and very technical document, attempting to turn it into something approaching the English language. This has, frankly, scrambled what little brains I have left to me.

So in tribute to the weekend, my Friday-frazzle and the fact I’m feeling a like I’ve been been in school all day – a glorious belter of swaggering Americana to see you into the evening.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you… the mighty, mighty Stray Cats