Thursday 13 August 2009

The sad news today is that all signs point towards a soul destroying day ahead.

There are another pain of train strikes scheduled for today and tomorrow but despite the nuisance they cause this week they have garnered next to zero press coverage. These unions (with even more involved today) have really scored an own goal by not getting what they are protesting for and instead creating even more ill feeling towards them and their cause due to the reality that they already provide a shoddy service that pisses off their customers. Pushed to this brink you could see/understand an eventual assault by a commuter/passenger/customer on a National Express member of staff except for the fact that this is England and there is something about our national psyche that causes us to just lie down, take this shit and get on with things. This is the blitz spirit gone wrong. This is not the country that saved the world in two world wars.

When I finally get online Ben is pointing me towards the Carling Cup draw. Initially I think he means that Millwall have got Colchester but when I check the BBC website they have got West Ham away. Oh shit, I didn’t think the police allowed that fixture anymore.

Today the train stops at Ingatestone and nobody gets on. What was the fucking point of that, adding that stop to the journey?

At Shenfield a smug dickhead I have seen before brings his kid in a pushchair onto a packed strike ridden train. Immediately I hate this guy, he is so well adjusted reminding me of so many successful brownnosers I have met and known over the years. He should get a job at Baker Street. He also should be in a Wii advert.

Swiftly this guy is followed onto the train by a man and his mailorder bride resulting in one of the most annoyingly chatty trains ever. The fucking blitz spirit, sometimes it does not serve us well.

Someone on this train smells of KFC wet wipes today.

The train eventually pulls into Liverpool Street at 8.12AM and it could easily have been later. As I plough through the station to catch my tube I catch glimpse of the Chinese OCD Man pointlessly straightening the messily stack copies of The Metro.

It is a fairly staid journey to the restaurant this morning and when I arrive I am first one in.

The day ahead was always going to be a slog but this is not assisted by my boss stomping around like a bear with a sore head this morning. By the time we reach lunch I am feeling sorry for myself so I have a feeling sorry for myself burger and chips for dinner. Feeling sorry for yourself tastes good!

All in all the day is spent having people do my fucking head in.

Later The Girl gets onto the subject of incoming birthday presents and then the other one says something odd related to this and valentines gifts. Suggestion.

The consultant bowls in earlier than announced but later than is sensible. When he arrives I am not ready/prepared to deal with him at that time and he catches me on the hop. Things with him are frosty and depressing. I sail out the afternoon trying to put right what the outsource guy has fouled up but in order to reconcile my figures things are proving impossible without any grounding to start on.

In the end of the day I get out ten minutes late which ultimately is far from ideal considering that the strike is still in full flow. By the time I get to the train (6.30PM to Norwich) it is already rammed. I find myself having to stand until Chelmsford at which point I get the privilege of getting out of the way in order to let everybody off before finally getting back on the train and finding a seat. These strikes are making rail travel and genuinely miserable experience.

During the journey it gets announced that there will not be a strike tomorrow. We won! The commuters won! Despite the hassle the RMT decided to through at us as a collective us commuters endured the inconvenience in order to still get to work. FUCK! YOU!

I begin to wonder if the end of the strikes counts for the two scheduled for next week also. It must do.

While sat down I find myself distracted away from my iPhone by some annoying posh boy with a poxed face and ridiculous woollen hat talking about tattoos. Despite evidently not having a fucking clue, yeah he has the world at his fucking feet.

Eventually I get off the train just after 7.15PM and when I do so the sun is still out in force and the evening remains a cool summer so I text Mark to see if he is about for some drinks.

We meet up at 7.45PM outside the Hogshead on what I would describe as a European evening. Tearing into some wind down drinks we trawl through the scrawl of our respective days.

For a Thursday night the pub is surprisingly and shockingly quiet. I guess this is the credit crunch coupled with supermarket prices keeping people at home in the evenings.

We call it a night around 10PM and I get home just in time to catch Big Brother and the sight of Bea having an odd breakdown accusing the newly smug Freddie and surprisingly sensible Marcus of bullying her. In the diary room she begins to resemble the twig Nikki Grahame from a year or so ago. Apparently somebody I used to work with at the studio was in “hospital”, “care” and “therapy” with Nikki. Meanwhile what the fuck is the deal with people named B?

Soon after this I pass out and put the day out of its misery.