Friday 24 April 2009
This morning I wake up feeling so so.
Again today I appear to have no clothes wear. Miraculously somehow an old large black v-neck fits me and loosely. This is a top I had long since written off as too small for me (in addition to verging on tatty). Once more going from one day wearing an XXL top that fells snug on me down to an L that fits loosely is really playing havoc with my self-image and esteem. Talk about a rollercoaster of mind tricks. I thought it was only women that went through this nonsense.
I leave the house at 6.48; this is very late - the latest time this week. Somehow I manage to catch my 7.03 train though.
At Kelvedon the Baker Street boss’s wife lookalike gets on the train accompanied by another doppelganger in the form of that rapist Mr Pan in chubby form. Actually perhaps that is him having let himself royally go. I’m convinced, he does look like the cross pollination of Jeremy Kyle, Paul Morley and Mr Bean.
As I look out of the train window at a wonderfully fresh morning I also notice a long hair wedged in the frame/groove of the window – how on earth did that get there?
After last nights debacle on the trains it actually pulls into Liverpool Street on time this morning. This is not a fair exchange, be on time in the evenings, despite my protestations delays in the mornings are actually semi acceptable in comparison – that is work time not MY time.
Despite this optimism of my corner of the public transport system running on time today typically as soon as I get on the tube the fucker pauses between Liverpool Street and Moorgate for too much of an extended period/spell. God hates me.
At work today turns out to be another relatively easy coast of a day. I actually find myself able to email friends and update them on my movements for the first time in weeks. For a third day running I slowly plug away at the management pack for March which is a low priority on the agenda but its there all the same as something of a no-brainer task.
Our work computers are currently having a new version of Sage put onto them AND a major update of the antivirus software and as a result they are really flagging and suffering. This cuts into my productivity also.
Regardless of this the remainder of the day sails out relatively comfortably.
After work I head over to Vertigo 42 with various people from work to celebrate the manager’s birthday. En masse we stack aboard a Central Line train to head over to Bank.
From the off I sense and fear that tonight will be a struggle. Firstly I am the only person headed along that comes from the admin/head office level rather than actually working in the restaurant which means this is an already tight social group I am attempting to work my way into. Secondly most of the group are foreign and I am just so shit at understanding foreign accents. God bless them but I can’t understand these guys for the life of me.
En masse we hop aboard a train at St Johns Wood changing at Bond Street to head over to Bank and The City. This is exciting stuff. Prior to hitting the big place we go on something of a tour of The City, being shown old bullet holes from the war before hitting a bar where the manager used to work.
The night is slow starting. Like a fish out of water I soon feel as if I am drowning. Looking around the bar it is nothing but city professionals blowing off steam and burning wodges of cash. Credit crunch, what credit crunch these guys are still laughing, sometimes in our faces. It is strange to think that only a few days/weeks ago this part of London was supposedly a war zone. How fast the world turns/changes. Feeling uncomfortable I make the decision that I need to get drunk and fast.
As we eventually head to Vertigo 42 I receive a call from the IT Guy asking where the tower/building is. I tell him we are about to get there and to wait for us.
When we arrive at Vertigo 42 it is amazing. Looking up towards the top it is almost as if you are looking up forever. Outside at the entrance the IT Guy is nowhere to be seen so I call him up and when he answers he goes into some kind of rant about how the guys at the reception are “up their own arses” and it has pissed him off so he has headed off home. OK, I’ve seen this side of the guy before quite recently. Best let angry dogs lie.
There is a real dedicated sense of security attached to this venue as after our group gets signed in we have to go through a metal detector, emptying our pockets and feeling like we are about to board a plane. Some home for some reason this only adds to experience and serves to make me feel even more special, albeit a person held under suspicion.
Our group misses out on the first elevator to the top and as we compare countries of origins after many foreign tongues flow it turns out that I am the only English person in this half of the group. Never let it be said I am racist, even when they mock me for acting flash and having an iPhone.
For climbing 42 floors the elevator is very swift when we eventually board it and upon arriving at Vertigo 42 the view is as magnificent as I was hoping it would be.
The manager timed this evening almost perfectly; our 90-minute window coincides with dusk and terror twilight making the landscape of London as breathtaking as possible. This is the kind of venue where you would take a person to propose to.
Our section is based facing the East and beneath us the twinkling lights of Liverpool Street stand out (once pointed to me) and that would be the place I would nominally be at at this time.
As the champagne flows people begin to loosen up and have a lot of fun. This is the type of place that does not require words.
The Albanian sausage chef and I begin to click as we take the piss out of certain ladies in our group and his front in taking photos of their breasts fairly impresses me.
Getting a whole panoramic view of the landscape the London Bridge area is perhaps the most recognisable part of London and then I realise just whose workplace I am gawping at and I wonder if she is currently in that grotty Globe bar next to it at this time.
I don’t know if it is the altitude or the copious amounts of champagne that I am lucky enough to grab/snag but eventually I find myself becoming quite overwhelmed and emotional by it all. As I turn into a complete and utter fanny I do some kind of Facebook status along the lines of “I wish I had somebody to share such times with.” Even though it doesn’t I find myself getting wet (as in wet bastard).
We go past our 90 minute window with the night becoming dark but luckily none of the staff are looking to rush us out and there does not appear to be another party waiting to come in to take our place. As the view turns from a sight of historic buildings to millions of twinkling lights it is no less impressive.
As everyone else gets into their own thing I begin to space out and attempt to reconcile my position in proceedings and somehow I fail to do so.
When people begin to mention being hungry I soon snap out of my apparent trance, especially when McDonalds is mentioned. In no hurry to leave though we look at the menu and the cheapest item is canapés for £36. When they deliver the canapés it is just eight portions of nibbles that our entourage swarm upon like ants at a picnic. This is the most expensive food in history.
Eventually we head out but not before the manager offers to foot the bill. With the champagne bottles coming in at just under £100 embarrassed by such generosity on his part we have an impromptu whip round.
Outside we linger before heading on to somewhere else. With no destination planned our group obviously begins to meander and wander aimlessly. As we take a break at a bench it turns into something of a photo shoot to capture good times. As I drunkenly take photos I suddenly notice a police van of which I take of photograph of for fun before remembering that this is now illegal these days and could get me into trouble if encountered by a jobsworth.
The point of this little break/stop/pause becomes obvious when a controversial figure turns up to join our group. No one famous, just infamous at work.
As we move onto our next destination we pass a shrine/mural for Ian Tomlinson I hear one of our group (a foreigner) say, “who is Ian Tomlinson?” I think this is why I don’t feel part of the group.
At Bank we arrive at a bar called Abacus. We join the queue now as a gaggle of around fifteen people, predominantly male. As we shove the ladies to the front of our group, attempt to pair off and not look too drunk the plan appears to work as the doormen let us in after a little conversation. I guess we soothed their egos enough.
Inside the place it is a heaving throng of disco tarts and mainstream drunks. For some reason I take an almost instant dislike to the place. As people clamber towards the bar I no longer feel in the mood for socialising, partly because suddenly I feel invisible and uncomfortable. That is not to say that there are not girls in this place I wouldn’t want to fuck.
After standing around observing for five minutes for me the night feels beached and over so I head over to the manager whose birthday we are celebrating before heading home.
As I emerge onto the streets of Friday night Bank I find myself falling into some kind of conversation with a young drunken arsehole. It begins asking me how to get somewhere I have never heard of (meaning it is probably in Zone 6) before he begins having a go at me for being foreign. Just because I am drunk and slurring does not mean I am a chitchat. As I front up and begin some solid conversation he begins telling me how he earns a lot of money. I ask him what he does for a living and he says, “I’m a drug dealer.” In an effort to piss him I slowly shake my head and go “but you’re not black.” Annoyingly he doesn’t bite as I wish he would try dealing drugs on the streets of Baltimore as featured in The Wire. That would be quite a short episode.
Thankfully I don’t have to put up with him for long before we reach Bank station and I fly over to Liverpool Street before catching my train home to Colchester.
Back in Colchester the night is relatively young, I would appear that I ditched the evening just after 10PM.
As I leave the station I find myself following a chunky girl in blue trenchcoat/raincoat up the stairs. I don’t think it is the case but I do accidentally fall up the steps at this point, which might have been the result of me trying to look up her dress. Although I do think it was. Honest. Annoyingly as I stumble and fall I probably expose my arse while also landing on my hand holding my iPhone. Luckily I don’t destroy it. I do however bloody my hand. What’s the about?
When I get back to my parents I chose not to immediately get in my car, instead I pass out on their sofa watching South Park, which appears to have been the theme for most of the week.
When I wake up Fahrenheit 451 is on TV. I was really hoping to watch this tonight but once more I have fucked up my plans through drinking. Disheartened I lock up the flat and head home. Back in Bohemian Grove I put the remainder of Fahrenheit 451 on my TV home before passing out but not before I wonder whether when it happens if somebody will be kind enough to memorise my book (JGRAM WORLD) and walk around a wood/forest reciting it. I wonder.
This morning I wake up feeling so so.
Again today I appear to have no clothes wear. Miraculously somehow an old large black v-neck fits me and loosely. This is a top I had long since written off as too small for me (in addition to verging on tatty). Once more going from one day wearing an XXL top that fells snug on me down to an L that fits loosely is really playing havoc with my self-image and esteem. Talk about a rollercoaster of mind tricks. I thought it was only women that went through this nonsense.
I leave the house at 6.48; this is very late - the latest time this week. Somehow I manage to catch my 7.03 train though.
At Kelvedon the Baker Street boss’s wife lookalike gets on the train accompanied by another doppelganger in the form of that rapist Mr Pan in chubby form. Actually perhaps that is him having let himself royally go. I’m convinced, he does look like the cross pollination of Jeremy Kyle, Paul Morley and Mr Bean.
As I look out of the train window at a wonderfully fresh morning I also notice a long hair wedged in the frame/groove of the window – how on earth did that get there?
After last nights debacle on the trains it actually pulls into Liverpool Street on time this morning. This is not a fair exchange, be on time in the evenings, despite my protestations delays in the mornings are actually semi acceptable in comparison – that is work time not MY time.
Despite this optimism of my corner of the public transport system running on time today typically as soon as I get on the tube the fucker pauses between Liverpool Street and Moorgate for too much of an extended period/spell. God hates me.
At work today turns out to be another relatively easy coast of a day. I actually find myself able to email friends and update them on my movements for the first time in weeks. For a third day running I slowly plug away at the management pack for March which is a low priority on the agenda but its there all the same as something of a no-brainer task.
Our work computers are currently having a new version of Sage put onto them AND a major update of the antivirus software and as a result they are really flagging and suffering. This cuts into my productivity also.
Regardless of this the remainder of the day sails out relatively comfortably.
After work I head over to Vertigo 42 with various people from work to celebrate the manager’s birthday. En masse we stack aboard a Central Line train to head over to Bank.
From the off I sense and fear that tonight will be a struggle. Firstly I am the only person headed along that comes from the admin/head office level rather than actually working in the restaurant which means this is an already tight social group I am attempting to work my way into. Secondly most of the group are foreign and I am just so shit at understanding foreign accents. God bless them but I can’t understand these guys for the life of me.
En masse we hop aboard a train at St Johns Wood changing at Bond Street to head over to Bank and The City. This is exciting stuff. Prior to hitting the big place we go on something of a tour of The City, being shown old bullet holes from the war before hitting a bar where the manager used to work.
The night is slow starting. Like a fish out of water I soon feel as if I am drowning. Looking around the bar it is nothing but city professionals blowing off steam and burning wodges of cash. Credit crunch, what credit crunch these guys are still laughing, sometimes in our faces. It is strange to think that only a few days/weeks ago this part of London was supposedly a war zone. How fast the world turns/changes. Feeling uncomfortable I make the decision that I need to get drunk and fast.
As we eventually head to Vertigo 42 I receive a call from the IT Guy asking where the tower/building is. I tell him we are about to get there and to wait for us.
When we arrive at Vertigo 42 it is amazing. Looking up towards the top it is almost as if you are looking up forever. Outside at the entrance the IT Guy is nowhere to be seen so I call him up and when he answers he goes into some kind of rant about how the guys at the reception are “up their own arses” and it has pissed him off so he has headed off home. OK, I’ve seen this side of the guy before quite recently. Best let angry dogs lie.
There is a real dedicated sense of security attached to this venue as after our group gets signed in we have to go through a metal detector, emptying our pockets and feeling like we are about to board a plane. Some home for some reason this only adds to experience and serves to make me feel even more special, albeit a person held under suspicion.
Our group misses out on the first elevator to the top and as we compare countries of origins after many foreign tongues flow it turns out that I am the only English person in this half of the group. Never let it be said I am racist, even when they mock me for acting flash and having an iPhone.
For climbing 42 floors the elevator is very swift when we eventually board it and upon arriving at Vertigo 42 the view is as magnificent as I was hoping it would be.
The manager timed this evening almost perfectly; our 90-minute window coincides with dusk and terror twilight making the landscape of London as breathtaking as possible. This is the kind of venue where you would take a person to propose to.
Our section is based facing the East and beneath us the twinkling lights of Liverpool Street stand out (once pointed to me) and that would be the place I would nominally be at at this time.
As the champagne flows people begin to loosen up and have a lot of fun. This is the type of place that does not require words.
The Albanian sausage chef and I begin to click as we take the piss out of certain ladies in our group and his front in taking photos of their breasts fairly impresses me.
Getting a whole panoramic view of the landscape the London Bridge area is perhaps the most recognisable part of London and then I realise just whose workplace I am gawping at and I wonder if she is currently in that grotty Globe bar next to it at this time.
I don’t know if it is the altitude or the copious amounts of champagne that I am lucky enough to grab/snag but eventually I find myself becoming quite overwhelmed and emotional by it all. As I turn into a complete and utter fanny I do some kind of Facebook status along the lines of “I wish I had somebody to share such times with.” Even though it doesn’t I find myself getting wet (as in wet bastard).
We go past our 90 minute window with the night becoming dark but luckily none of the staff are looking to rush us out and there does not appear to be another party waiting to come in to take our place. As the view turns from a sight of historic buildings to millions of twinkling lights it is no less impressive.
As everyone else gets into their own thing I begin to space out and attempt to reconcile my position in proceedings and somehow I fail to do so.
When people begin to mention being hungry I soon snap out of my apparent trance, especially when McDonalds is mentioned. In no hurry to leave though we look at the menu and the cheapest item is canapés for £36. When they deliver the canapés it is just eight portions of nibbles that our entourage swarm upon like ants at a picnic. This is the most expensive food in history.
Eventually we head out but not before the manager offers to foot the bill. With the champagne bottles coming in at just under £100 embarrassed by such generosity on his part we have an impromptu whip round.
Outside we linger before heading on to somewhere else. With no destination planned our group obviously begins to meander and wander aimlessly. As we take a break at a bench it turns into something of a photo shoot to capture good times. As I drunkenly take photos I suddenly notice a police van of which I take of photograph of for fun before remembering that this is now illegal these days and could get me into trouble if encountered by a jobsworth.
The point of this little break/stop/pause becomes obvious when a controversial figure turns up to join our group. No one famous, just infamous at work.
As we move onto our next destination we pass a shrine/mural for Ian Tomlinson I hear one of our group (a foreigner) say, “who is Ian Tomlinson?” I think this is why I don’t feel part of the group.
At Bank we arrive at a bar called Abacus. We join the queue now as a gaggle of around fifteen people, predominantly male. As we shove the ladies to the front of our group, attempt to pair off and not look too drunk the plan appears to work as the doormen let us in after a little conversation. I guess we soothed their egos enough.
Inside the place it is a heaving throng of disco tarts and mainstream drunks. For some reason I take an almost instant dislike to the place. As people clamber towards the bar I no longer feel in the mood for socialising, partly because suddenly I feel invisible and uncomfortable. That is not to say that there are not girls in this place I wouldn’t want to fuck.
After standing around observing for five minutes for me the night feels beached and over so I head over to the manager whose birthday we are celebrating before heading home.
As I emerge onto the streets of Friday night Bank I find myself falling into some kind of conversation with a young drunken arsehole. It begins asking me how to get somewhere I have never heard of (meaning it is probably in Zone 6) before he begins having a go at me for being foreign. Just because I am drunk and slurring does not mean I am a chitchat. As I front up and begin some solid conversation he begins telling me how he earns a lot of money. I ask him what he does for a living and he says, “I’m a drug dealer.” In an effort to piss him I slowly shake my head and go “but you’re not black.” Annoyingly he doesn’t bite as I wish he would try dealing drugs on the streets of Baltimore as featured in The Wire. That would be quite a short episode.
Thankfully I don’t have to put up with him for long before we reach Bank station and I fly over to Liverpool Street before catching my train home to Colchester.
Back in Colchester the night is relatively young, I would appear that I ditched the evening just after 10PM.
As I leave the station I find myself following a chunky girl in blue trenchcoat/raincoat up the stairs. I don’t think it is the case but I do accidentally fall up the steps at this point, which might have been the result of me trying to look up her dress. Although I do think it was. Honest. Annoyingly as I stumble and fall I probably expose my arse while also landing on my hand holding my iPhone. Luckily I don’t destroy it. I do however bloody my hand. What’s the about?
When I get back to my parents I chose not to immediately get in my car, instead I pass out on their sofa watching South Park, which appears to have been the theme for most of the week.
When I wake up Fahrenheit 451 is on TV. I was really hoping to watch this tonight but once more I have fucked up my plans through drinking. Disheartened I lock up the flat and head home. Back in Bohemian Grove I put the remainder of Fahrenheit 451 on my TV home before passing out but not before I wonder whether when it happens if somebody will be kind enough to memorise my book (JGRAM WORLD) and walk around a wood/forest reciting it. I wonder.
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