Mish Mash

I thought I would slip this entry in having partially recovered from a virus. I know man-flu doesn’t bring the sympathy that I think it should but at least it was nothing worse. Still things have slowed down for me because I spent a few days in bed groaning, watching The IT Crowd, listening to Radio 5 (hearing the same news stories being repeated every half hour is akin to torture, I’m sure of it). But being sick also meant my life kind of went topsy-turvey.

My routine of work and lunch were thrown aside to be replaced by constant wriggling in an attempt to get comfortable so I could fall asleep. I still needed to get some Christmas presents but was unable to because of my illness. But although I was unable to do any of the tasks I would do on a daily basis it gave me time to think about things perhaps more important to me. The things I usually neglect, not because I want to, but because daily life kind of takes over and I neglect it to the point of forgetting it. For instance, reflecting how well and how badly the year has gone for me. It is strange thinking about it while in a meeting or trying to compose an official email which requires me to scrutinise my grammar in case a smart ass points it out and also copies everyone else in. Nor can it be done in my lunch hour. I don’t want to spend my spare free time in a day to reflect on things like that. I want to eat, talk trash or funny anecdotes and maybe go for a walk. In fact there is not many times I can think of to reflect about my year, apart from when I’m sick in bed. There is no question the thought would never have popped into my head had I not been lying there waiting to get better (which is like waiting for a train. You wait then wait. Then you sit down because waiting has made you tired until finally when all hope has gone it casually rolls up with a conductor hanging out of the window flicking his fag ash everywhere).

In a whole I have been happy with the year and it seems that the last couple of years I have achieved quite a lot. I don’t know why and tried to think about it but couldn’t find the answer, maybe I had just got mentally stronger in the sense I can take more things on now. Juggle more oranges in my life so I could be doing many things at once instead of two or three. It hasn’t been all dandy though, I have dropped a few, and squashed them. Hard. But for some reason, probably because I haven’t had much time to dwell over anything, I have just picked myself back up and carried on. Mistakes at work, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, accidentally using the female shower room* all seemed to happen but I just deal with it, laughed sheepishly before running off or just apologised and then moved on leaving me thinking that I have nudged in the right direction in ’08, just.

Although reflecting about a year still didn’t deliver me a kettle to wrap for Christmas. So this morning I managed to climb out of bed, have a shower and put on any clean clothes I could find. Town was heaving, and I thought everyone else was at work but it seemed they all had the same idea as me this morning. So still drowsy with man-flu and dragging my feet as I walked I found the nearest electrical store. Glaring at all the people bustling and jostling against one another I took a deep breath and dived in pushing my way through feeling like crap and sounding even more so. I stuck out a hand picked up and box with a kettle in it, joined the queue which took so long that I even had time to plug in my ipod, paid and got the hell back home. If only shopping for presents were this simple all the time.

Merry Christmas peeps


*Please note that it is only a single cubicle shower room and I unwittingly walked in thinking it was just unisex. I was corrected when a female knocked on the door and ask what the hell is a male was doing there.

We’re Jammin’

Last night I had my next entry all planned out to write upon my arrival, it kind of fell into my head. That was until I got caught in a traffic jam for four hours so I have decided to write about that instead.

I was on the X5 heading back from Oxford. Everything was running smoothly, in fact the driver was swerving rather erratically around the bends causing me to occasionally bump my head against the window. Still I carried on with my book with my ipod plugged in. I had it on shuffle.

We left the city in haste going around 70mph where ever we could. But then it became 50mph, then 30mph until gradually we were going 15 mph and finally we were at stand still. I didn’t think much of it at first and in fact was secretly quite pleased because the plot was thickening in my book – kind of like corn flour when making home made gravy.

By the time I had reached chapter seventeen, I realised we had crawled about ten metres in the last half an hour. My senses suddenly became aware of my surroundings, particularly the passengers. A girl on the right a few seats down was talking loudly to her friend on the phone. “Yeah it’s on my Facebook page.” She told her (apparent) friend. “I’ve done some modelling shoots and they want to put me in a magazine.” There was an instinctive urge to see so I shuffled to the edge and caught a glimpse of her face. Yeah she could be a model. Still she spoke loudly so was glad I was not sitting by her.

Another girl who was behind me began to sigh. First it was a gentle sigh, one that kind of signified a wilting patience. Then after a few minutes she sighed with some force and her breath tickled the bit of my head that poked out from behind the back seat. There were a couple in front of me, both lying against one another forming a pyramid shape in between the two seats. I was tempted to push one of their heads just so I could see the other topple. I didn’t bother and returned to my book. Jimi Hendrix was playing on my ipod.

My thoughts returned to the current situation when a police car came hurtling past with its siren blaring aloud. The girl behind me was now on the phone cancelling her night’s plans because of the traffic jam. She apologised and then proclaimed that she had already read 107 pages of her book. What! I thought. I was a fast reader but this girl is reading twice the speed I am. Wow, perhaps I’m not fast at reading at all. Ah well. I shake my head to break my thoughts and hear the model now talking about getting wasted. “Yeah we can go down the pub and get bladdered”. She was talking even louder now. I looked over and saw the guy in front of her trying to catch her attention by pouting his lips slightly. He must have been trying to impress her. It didn’t work. “Yeah then we can go clubbing.” I sighed and then turned the page. Jose Gonzalez had just started.

I kind of freaked when I next saw the driver standing outside. We had not moved in that long that he felt there was enough time to go outside for a cheeky cigarette. What made me feel uneasy was that he was puffing on his Marlboro behind an oil tanker. I contemplated tapping on the window but then just slumped within my jacket. We’d been here a couple of hours, an explosion would at least make things a bit more interesting. Hey, it might even make local news if it’s a big enough blast. The girl behind me was on the phone again. “Talk to me I’m bored…” I liked her style. My eyes began to wander along the coach staring at the aisle way and then noticing a guy sitting behind the model reading a book. I tried to catch the title but couldn’t see it. Craning my neck to give myself a better angle still proved fruitless. I gave up for the time being and opened up my book again. “Yeah I’ve read 200 pages. I’d be totally screwed with out it.” Shit. This girl had some serious reading ability, I was barely scratching a century of pages and she was rifling through her tome like it was the latest Harry Potter novel. I begin to wonder if there is a tournament or world record for how fast people can read. If there was I would enter the girl behind me.

Finally we began to move. At first it was gradual with some rather sharp jerks which made me rock forward and bang my knees on the seat in front of me. The male of the couple turned his head back and gave me the stink eye. I shrugged my shoulders. It was not as if I meant it so felt I didn’t have to apologise. A shrug was all he was getting. Eventually the bus driver turned 2nd gear into 3rd and then 4th until finally we was cruising again on the open road in 5th. I tried once again to see if I could catch the title of the book the man was reading. Once again I failed. Ah well, it was a mildly entertaining game while it lasted. The model had now stopped talking and was staring out of the window. The girl behind me was also quiet so I looked outside. Everything seemed peaceful because it was hard to see anything. All was asleep, retired for the night apart from the X5 which was hurtling down the road trying to make up lost time. My eyes become heavy and I closed them. My ipod was now playing St Etienne and I fell asleep.

Pins ‘n Needles

I hate waking up with one of my limbs suffering with pins and needles. Last night, or should I say this morning, I awoke to this odd hot and cold sensation when I realised that I was lying on my left arm. My head was a little hazy at first and thought that I’d grown an extra arm or something but then the pins and needles started or that was when I noticed it. I winced and then I grimaced until finally I was biting my pillow and wailing slightly. It wasn’t all pain but feeling fragile around 4am in the morning exacerbated the sensation. Finally after a couple of minutes that warm prickly feeling started to subdue. It didn’t completely go but it was a bit more tolerable so it then left me with the next issue, an arm that did not do much.

It was twisted in a locked position and did not feel part of me. With my right hand I flicked it but could not feel a thing. I pinched it next and still there was nothing. I started to wonder whether I’d slept on it for so long that it was dead and would spend my remaining years hanging and swinging by my left side. Not so, at last after pinching and then twisting the skin I finally felt something. It was faint but at least the worry that it had gone to sleep forever had evaporated.

The next stage was to try and move it. There was no response when I tried to bend it. Instead I just lay there staring at my arm contemptuously because it was depriving me of sleep. I turned my body so I was now on my side and in doing so my arm moved but it was like carrying a dead weight and just slapped my chest before landing on to the bed. I even started to play with it, picking it up by the wrist and then dropping it like they used to do in WWF when the referee was checking to see if Hulk Hogan was still conscious. My arm just flopped on to the bed without emotion. It was almost like playing with a toy. I even pulled it up high and let go causing it to hit the bed then bounce up and slap me on the nose.

It was only when I kept my arm lifted for over thirty seconds that I it started to feel it again. Elated that the thing was finally sorting out its circulation I placed it hanging over my bed thinking that this is what would stimulate the circulation even more so. After a couple of minutes I felt this rush of energy run through my arm and suddenly my fingers were moving and the pins and needles were gone. I sighed in relief to have my arm back, like a friend you hadn’t seen in a while. You want to catch up but after a while the novelty where’s off. And it did for me as sleep finally took over and I closed my eyes making sure to keep in the same position so as not to find myself in the same situation again.

In other news Kerouac’s scroll is in England. It is currently residing in the University of Birmingham and I plan to have a look.

Vampires & Goths

It seems odd when I think about it and even stranger if I say it out loud but I’m really intrigued by the goth subculture. Ok, the music doesn’t really get me going (unless of course you are counting The Cure) because it depresses me. Maybe because it has an uncanny ability to influence my emotions into a state of despair but either way I keep away from it so I avoid any emotional trauma, like I do with Radiohead. I do like the way they dress though, especially the females and quite frankly I find goth girls alluring in an eerie way.

I could never be a goth though because I’m pretty rubbish. Committing myself to wearing black is too hard to do. There’s only a black leather jacket and a black t-shirt in my wardrobe. The rest is pretty much navy, grey or white. A navy coloured goth would just look foolish, surely. Also preparation time would take up much of my time. I’d have to learn how to apply black nail varnish and guyliner which would leave me looking stupid. Currently I can get ready in fourteen minutes in the morning which enables me to have an extra half hour in bed, giving that up would be hard to do especially to tie up those big ol’ boots. But why would I do I look in awe and curiosity when I walk past a gothic posse in the streets?

Maybe it is because when I was younger I was terrified of Vlad the Impaler, aka, Dracula. Christopher Lee swaggering around with his black cape in those hammer horror films had me going to bed having nightmares. Dracula is surely the goth messiah always shrouded in black and at his most powerful during night. Eventually, when I was a bit older I accepted that Dracula was not real or at least would not seek me out so now feeling a bit safer I began investigating his lore. The library brought me some rather different interpretations of a Romanian warlord or Count who used to dispose of his enemies by impaling them with a spear. Only for it to be done to him but he did not die. Women were wooed by his lascivious aura only to find themselves bitten in the night. And those victims to the sanguinary bite would become vampires themselves. Was Dracula unwittingly the original goth instigator? Well perhaps not especially if you look at Hollywood’s fairly recent portrayal of vampires. Interview with a Vampire had Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise walking around dressed rather casually without much black at all. There were no capes seen anywhere. The Lost Boys (I love this film) show the eighties generation of vampires as The Doors fans who although wear a lot more black still were not dressed in full gothic clobber. I am keen to see this Twilight film, the one with Cedric Diggory in it, just to see if the vampires of 2008 have by chance gone back to their original Dracula style roots. Vampires these days have drifted away from the black cape and powdered face so this has me thinking that Dracula may have kicked off the goth fashion but contemporary vampires try their best to integrate in society and therefore don’t walk around with high collared shirts (I will be keeping a more closer eye on Harry Hill though).

The relationship between vampirism and Gothicism seem entwined with me still trying to work the various connections, although for the learned it is probably clear as day light! Either way the subculture still fascinates me and I will continue to admire those goth chicks from afar.

Fix Up, Look Sharp

Mr Rascal instructs so I listen and follow. Even though it’s so 2005 I have discovered skinny ties. Ok, so I may look like a member out of Busted but it’s definitely left me feeling comfortable looking smart.

It all started with me having to go to an event which insisted on ties being worn. There was no chance of me getting away with the ol’ open shirt with a couple of buttons undone. A tie was a necessity. So off I trudged to town on a mission to find one. I tried the most obvious place first, the Tie Rack. It is kind of an awkward shop on the corner of a larger building, I wasn’t sure how to actually get in because there were stands everywhere. A kind lady spotted the novice and aptly starting producing ties all over the place. “This will suit you.” “That will definitely match your shirt”. It sounded all very nice that I knew I was being played. There was no way a purple tie would look good against a brown shirt, or so I thought. I smiled sweetly whilst carefully backing away from the shop only to hit the back of head on a stand full of scarves. The stand shook and a few dropped on the floor leaving me feeling obliged to pick them up. As I stood though there were more ties being shoved in my face ranging from polka-dot to stripy and it was all too much for me. I laid the scarves from the stand and then bolted.

The next few shops proved futile, leaving me walking past Next. For a moment I took a step towards its direction but remembered that anything I buy there at least 3,567 people will be wearing the same thing. I back tracked and headed to John Lewis. The ties were gorgeous, spun by the finest Vietnamese silk worms but because of that they were costing around £50 - £80. I was not prepared to part with that sort of cash just because I can say my tie was made out of worms. I headed along not sure where to go next when I thought I might as well check out H&M. It was there that I saw a skinny tie. Although I’d come across them many a time it never really appealed to me wearing something half the size it should be. Grabbing it off the hook I spun it around my neck and remembered that I was pretty lame at tying knots, instead I twisted and turned it under so it kind of looked like a knot. Doing this meant I could not move my neck otherwise it would unravel and float to the floor leaving me looking a fool. Eventually sliding to the mirror I realised immediately that it actually suited me. It was a strange feeling of relief that my quest had come to an end but also I was annoyed why I hadn’t realised before. I pulled the tie away from my neck and this time spun it around so that it rested just beneath my open shirt. I just grinned and walked off to pick up four other more before heading to the till.

So in short I’ve been wearing a lot of ties recently to work because I kind of like them. People ask if I’ve got an interview but I don’t care because it kind of makes me feel like an action hero when I’m late for things and run down the road with the tie flapping in the air like ribbon blowing in the wind.