Again this morning the
alarm clock buzzes just as I roll over to begin a second bout of sleep. This is God’s little way of teasing and
tantalising me. Most people have wives that
do it for them but me, I have a shitty appliance.
I am slow moving this
morning. On GMTV all complaint about
Thierry Henry’s double handball last night is feeble and ill informed and ill
educated. They will not play this game
again in a million years.
Today I can’t help but
wonder if given half the chance Andrew Castle would like
to be the UK equivalent of Glenn
Beck.
Away from this I find
myself being distracted by clips from Public Disgrace this morning. These clips are awful, this is not how
people should be treated. This is not
healthy sex or healthy porn.
As I leave and drive
out of our communal car park The Ghost gets out
of my way so that I am able to drive past him.
While I do so I wave at him. Are
we friends yet?
It’s a boring journey
up to London today that takes in
the lowest part of my thinking.
The working day turns
out to be another disrupted one. The
consultant is supposed to come in today but he doesn’t bother, not even taking
the time to let us know or inform us of his absence in order to make a gesture
to rearrange. We’ve got a right one
here.
Downstairs in the
afternoon the restaurant gets revamped as a corporate bash complete with red
carpet takes over the entire place for a private booking. It all looks very serious and surprisingly
swish as our gaff really gets polished up.
Worryingly just before the end of the day we hear a large smash as
somebody somewhere drops a lot of glasses but despite our boss panicking the
manager seems nonplussed as she assures him that she has enough glasses to
cater. The revamp is completed by an
actual red carpet leading into the entrance of the restaurant. This is genuinely swish.
As the day hurtles
toward an end there is still the fear that the consultant might troll in late
in the day as we repeatedly echo the words “surely he won’t come in now.” Eventually we head off around 5PM in a
minibus that takes us to Bloomsbury. On the way the Twin Peaks garage telephones me to remind
me of my impending MOT (as if I needed reminding) and I book my car in for next
Tuesday in the hope that dad will help me out with it.
Once out of the cab I
lead everyone to the Bloomsbury
Bowling where upon arrival nobody else from the company is to be seen. Even early in the evening the place is
already swinging and immediately my boss looks pretty unimpressed by the place.
As we wait nobody
turns up and then it becomes apparent that the lanes have actually been booked
at the All Star Bowling lanes in Holborn. More grumpiness ensues as we storm over to
the other lanes. Upon arrival straight
away we spot the other bosses of the company and a set of foreign faces.
I wind up on a lane
with a bunch of people I do not know.
The most prominent person is some guy (a manager) I have been told is bi
whose face regularly contorts with Coke snorts and spasms (another thing I have
been told about him). Invariably this
is the person I eventually end up competing against for last place. Things begin well however as with my second
bowl I score a strike that garners congratulation from unexpected
quarters. Unfortunately it all goes
downhill from here. Early on I decide I
don’t like my lane and eventually thankfully the game gets put out of its
misery as I finish on a score of 77 managing to avoid finishing last.
Afterwards we head to
the bar to get more drinks. For some
reason I feel out of sync with everybody else but luckily the company is
running a tab so I can order drinks freely and crawl out of my antisocial
stances by getting drunk.
As with all bowling
establishments this place lends a nod towards the Big Lebowski by
offering a White
Russian variation that basically is drink that comes with milk and Kahlua. Eager to try to this drink while a couple
sit at the bar in the way I find myself having to lean over to look into the
menu to see what it is called. As I do
so the couple clock me and begin verbally wondering what I am doing (not least
as it appears I am attempting to look up the woman’s skirt). Nonchalantly I explain that I am trying to
read the menu at which point I get into a very stunted nonversation
with them about the drink that none of the three of us what to be in.
Eventually I get my
drink, accidentally ordering two when I think he is asking me how many shots I
want. At this point the Filipino joins
me at the bar so I give on of them to her.
We take our seats and displaying something of a degree of ignorance I
cannot be bothered to make friends and go through nice nice with
any of these people while everyone else from our office seems keen to meet
people and put faces to names. Why I am
not feeling it tonight I don’t know.
Perhaps I am still pissed off by the people on the lane I was at or
maybe I am just cliquey. Most likely I
am just not in the mood.
Later we head to the booths
in order to have some food and the Australian manager of one of our central
sites decides to join us as he begins hitting on The Girl. I don’t like this guy and while everyone
prattles on about this and that I just grab a menu and hold it up to my face
seemingly in some kind of gesture to hide.
Obviously this soon gets pointed out and I have to admit I genuinely
hadn’t clocked that I was doing it.
For a starter I order
Squid Popcorn, which sounds delicious and exciting. To accompany this I order some kind of lasagne as my main and as
conversation descends in directions I am not necessarily interested in when the
food finally arrives it comes as a relief and the Squid Popcorn indeed tastes
fantastic (after the addition of a little Tabasco
sauce). Elsewhere on the table however
no one seems impressed with their food and in a lame act of schadenfreude I
take much amusement out of this.
The misery continues
as the main courses turn up and everyone reacts as if they have been served
shit. When did people get so snobby
about food? I can’t help but think the
worst people in the world to serve food to are indeed restaurant types of any
level.
A couple of times The
Girl heads outside for a smoke, joining various other manager and chef
types. I should really be making the
effort to speak to these people considering I work with them but I just can’t
be bothered. When The Girl eventually
returns out of boredom I begin asking her if the twitching manager has any coke
on him. This does not go down very well
especially considering that I am talking across our boss to get the question
in.
As the Australian’s
efforts to pull The Girl begin to become more and more desperate I eventually
bother to have some kind of stilted conversation with him. It turns out that before coming to England
to do the restaurant thing he spent time in Germany being a dancer. I feel like calling him a fairy and telling
him to fuck off back to Australia but I don’t I’m a nice guy at least trying to
make an effort.
Around 10PM gestures
are made to making a move by us accounts types and as I head off I pretend to
head to the toilet and don’t even bother to say “goodbye” to anybody. Quite frankly in many ways I should be shot.
After my piss I exit
walking down Southampton
Row drunk and grumpy heading towards Holborn station. When I eventually get to my platform I
notice a CBS Action advertisement on the wall featuring Moonlighting. Now that was a passionate TV show.
In the end I manage to
stagger aboard the 10.30PM train to Norwich meaning
that thankfully it won’t be too late by the time I get back to Colchester. On the way I listen to the most
recent Morrissey record on full volume and probably nod off.
Frustratingly on a
night I want to get home in a hurry it takes thirty minutes to get from
Liverpool Street to Romford. This is
fucking feeble.
Once back in
Colchester between the station and my flat just before midnight my phone rings
and it is a missed call from The Girl.
This is followed up by a text from her checking that I have got home
safely. I respond in kind. From here I go to bed grumpy although TV is
good. That’s all I need.
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