Tuesday 15 December 2009

Not the best night of sleep was had yesterday as I emerge into another frosty day.  I feel down today for various reasons, some tangible, some legit, some purely petty that would only expose me as too needy were I ever to discuss them in public.

As I head towards my car this morning it is frosted and requires more care that I had been wishing to attend.  This ache is then followed by the bad omen of my not getting my space in the car park.  All in all things look bad for today.

I sleepwalk through the train journey to London and eventually the train pulls into Liverpool Street at 8.02AM late.  What happened to my new wonder 6.59AM train that pulled into town on time, sometimes even early?

To be honest though I don’t really care too much about time today as I walk through my journey in a haze rather distracted by the legal proceedings threat hovering above my head.  Why now?  Why ruin Christmas?

When I eventually get to work there is nobody home.  Gingerly I climb up the stairs to our office and settle back into the day after being away for the weekend.  I look around to see if there is an evidence of any drama having occurred while I was away but all seems as per usual and nothing major appears to have ensued.

As my colleagues slowly filter in I am repeatedly reading over the threatening letter from the solicitor trying to decipher its barbed language.  How serious is this threat?  Is it just a routine cease and desist or is there more depth to it?  At least sat at my desk the words begin to make more sense to me than they did when I opened the letter in a panic at my flat yesterday.  It barks four requests from me, three of which I am relatively happy to comply with provided it is guaranteed that any action is not followed up and staged against me.  The request however for me to just transfer the domain over to his client I feel is somewhat cheeky and demanding.  There appears no leeway to this call/request but it is certainly not something I am happy with.  Under common law the solicitor says they have a claim to stake for it but do they really?  Am I cybersquatting?

In the end I literally waste the morning recording the website as is with view to eventually pulling it down to placate the requests of the solicitor.  Whether he is going to do this the easy way or the hard way is what’s open to debate and the variable that causes most concern.

Elsewhere tonight I am supposed to be meeting up with Carol, Leyla and Vicky from the studio but when I email the little group to confirm that we are still on unsurprisingly they turn flaky and drop out, rain checking until this time next month.  That said to be honest after yesterday’s disrupted sleep an early night is very much a positive plan for this evening.

For lunch I have chargrilled salmon with new potatoes and hollandaise sauce, you know that dish that I am always raving about and was until recently on the no go list.  For the first time however I feel too ill to eat it, I guess I am worrying about things more than I would like to acknowledge.  Ordinarily with this food part of me thinks I am eating myself thin.

At lunchtime I finally brave up and phone home after ignoring their calls three times yesterday.  It is reluctance that I make this call because I have the fear that my parents have been copping grief about the website over the weekend.  Thankfully however this is not the case and ultimately the calls I were ignoring yesterday were just calls of concern from my mother checking in that I got home safely yesterday.

With this in mind I begin piecing together my response to the solicitor’s letter.  When I look at where the offices are it turns out that they are five minutes from our restaurant so with this in mind I suggest that I go in for a meeting.  In the end my response takes up the form of:

“Dear Sir or Madam

In reference to your letter sent 10 December 2009 (received 14 December 2009) with the reference 3571 I am sorry to hear that your client felt the necessity to go through a third party such as yourself.

Regardless I think we are all on the same page even if the intentions of the site have been slightly misinterpreted by your client (in a negative manner).  The reality that they have felt the necessity to go legal is sad but now unavoidable.

I work just off Finchley Road and am mere minutes within your address so I would very much like to come in for a brief discussion so that we can put this to bed (not least before Christmas).

Please let me know when it would be convenient for me to come in and speak with you to get this resolved.

Yours faithfully”

From here onwards I plough through the rest of the day still feeling tired from the weekend meaning that I never really get much done.  Tomorrow I will run faster.

Today the office radio gets retuned to Magic FM in a gesture of female defiance.  This is truly depressing stuff.  Early into proceedings we find ourselves listening to “You’re The Voice” by John Farnham.  Now that is haunting stuff, reminding me of being young, stupid, boring and bullied.  Must I really endure such flashbacks in such testing times?  Later Bon Jovi appears on the station when I was convinced it was Springsteen, sounds the same to me.  Eventually a sense of fun arrives to proceedings as “Knowing Me, Knowing You” by Abba gets played prompting my Alan Partridge impression, which no one in the office gets.  Work colleague fail.

As far as strange work colleagues go The Girl today mentions without irony how she has a Facebook friend called Luke Skywalker.  From here I proceed to spend a large portion of the afternoon asking (then telling) her about Star Wars.  Apparently she is oblivious to it.

My afternoon at work however ends on a positive note as I discover that there is/maybe a Bad Santa 2.  Yes please!

Not before time 5.30PM comes around and soon I find myself on the tube across town to Liverpool Street.  Tonight on the train is an attractive girl reading “Kill Your Friends” by John Niven.  In another life we might have had that in common, it could have been a beautiful thing.

Tonight when I eventually get home I am truly exhausted.  I try to right but fail in my efforts.  I do however combine Dolmio pasta sauce with bread and turn it into a toasted sandwich.  I think working in a restaurant is finally rubbing off on me.  As I return to endeavour to write I eventually laugh it off with watching an episode of 30 Rock before turning in for bed.

Do they sell Slankets in England?