Wednesday 27 January 2010

As I drive to the station this morning I get stuck behind a slow poodling yellow little car.  It is tiny.  Later when I get close enough to it I get to see a variation of the ”Baby On Board” sticker/badge that reads “Fiona On Board.”  Idiot.

Beyond this revelation I get through the train and tube without worry and eventually wander into work feeling relatively happy and untarnished.  Things then improve infinitely when the angry boss hands me a cup of coffee and bacon sandwich for “being first in.”  With this the bacon makes up the first of one of my five meats a day.

Proceedings plummet slightly as the consultant trots in early which all in all equates to another potentially hectic day ahead of me.  Thankfully though it would appear he is here to get caught up in other dealings thus giving me a break/relief from his grilling.

Mid morning I receive an email from eHarmony.  After yesterday’s genuinely offensive response to my registration I can only take this as them kicking sand in my eyes and rubbing my face in it.  Really what the fuck is this about?  If they’ve already told me that I am not good enough to enrol with them (and in essence not good enough to have a relationship) what part of their evil mentality sees it necessary to remind me of this?  Why taunt a person after you have knocked them down?  What an awful, terrible fucking organisation.  I should email them a JPEG of my arsehole, its what they deserve.

After a swift morning lunch soon comes around and today devoid of imagination I plump for penne with chicken.  So with the chicken I manage to reach number two of my five meats a day.

I spend the remainder of the day attempting to reconcile the control accounts but ultimately they are just a mess.  Unfortunately at the point I have picked these figures up (the weekly trading records) they haven’t arrived 100% accurate.  Now however its time to play the blame game and I’m an easy target.

It becomes apparent today that the Heavy Metal Manager has now finished.  From various sources it is indicated that it was not a good end.  He comes up with some wanky announcement on Facebook that is just arrogant in its execution, although not necessarily out of character.  Despite all this I will miss him.

Today I am getting it from all directions: the consultant is in, Nicole’s uni paper is almost due, the IT Guy is asking me about his tax and accounts and now my boss is asking me to help him sort out his online tax return submission.  All in all as a result of this I wind up staying back until 7.15PM during which post 5.30PM I sort out my boss, Nicole and end up having an hour long state of the nation discussion with the IT guy who is acting somewhat bipolar in his reasoning.  I really don’t know what or how to advise him.  Ultimately I just keep coming back to that old theory: indecision is worse than wrong decision.

Once having escaped all the tasks at hand I jump aboard the Jubilee Line and head down to Waterloo and the South Bank for the DAVID RENWICK talk at the BFI.

Upon arriving at Waterloo I hit pay dirt and snag a Starbucks dinner (anything venti).  I have been itching for a Starbucks for weeks now.  Sadly my choice of Vanilla Latte proves a poor decision and somewhat underwhelming.  Pants.

From here I get to the BFI in perfect time and just as I collect my ticket for the event the call goes out that the screen is now open.  With this I step inside NFT1 collecting a set of BFI notes on the way.

Tonight Screen 1 is fairly sparse with most of the audience huddled in a section towards the front.  As people begin filtering in I recognise the old lady (Mrs Warboys) from One Foot In The Grave taking her seat.

When the Q&A finally begins DAVID RENWICK turns out to be a very interesting writer stating amongst his influences Woody Allen and nuclear holocaust.  Suddenly with this it becomes obvious why I am a fan.

The mixture of chat and clips serves him well as the machinations of both his craft and the industry are discussed and come to light.  The clip they show from One Foot In The Grave is a particularly great one and afterwards when she gets called out we are given the opportunity to hit Mrs Warboys with a round of applause.  Likewise later after the Jonathan Creek clip gets played it transpires that Alan Davies is in the audience also.

I will never get tired of listening to writers speaking of how they pull together their pieces, of where they find/sought inspiration and how they get to the point of completion.  In DAVID RENWICK here is a man with a legacy that is a lot more extended than a person initially realises (even to the point of doing a couple of Poirot episodes).  Most tellingly for me he discusses the moment at which his went from amateur to professional in the writer stakes.

Afterwards during the Q&A it gets revealed that the reason why the LOVE SOUP format changed was due to Michael Landes being offered a big opportunity in America and unfortunately it was something he just could not sync with filming the show.

As the talk comes to an end the cinema drops dark and the opening strains of “Alley Boogie” by Georgia White ring out on screen and suddenly it feels as if I am watching the England movie that Woody Allen should have made.  LOVE SOUP was an amazing series and it is a true shame that it only lasted for two seasons and has not been more lauded over time.  Watching the first ever episode tonight soon I am quickly reminded of just how much I enjoyed it and how it went to more places than most series go in an entire season.

I think the strength in the series comes in the dry and dark humour of the tone to proceedings that often verges on the almost bleak.  For a person feeling out of step with the world LOVE SOUP serves to touch so many nerves, press so many buttons because it is just so realistic and tangible as well as being insanely quirky and weird, which quite frankly is how a person such as myself wants to view their own life/existence in addition to being caked in wit.

The episode ends very darkly with Tamsin Greig’s character encountering a psychopath, experiencing great sadness at the injustice of the world as a dog is put to sleep before she settles on some kind of boring compromise in the mouth of a foot fetishist.  The eternal question gets raised: what am I doing?

As the lights come up and we collectively begin to make our way out heading up the stairs I spot the lady that plays Mrs Warboys sat at the back of the cinema and she clocks me recognising her.  Not wishing to bother the poor lady I just fire her the broadest smile appreciative of her work and recognising her talent.  She responds in kind, I think we are both on the same wavelength.

From here I tear back to Liverpool Street from Waterloo via London Bridge and Moorgate.  Once off the Jubilee Line and onto the Northern Line the journey picks up pace.

Once finally on a train back to Colchester my journey home is informed by the news of two evictions from the Celebrity Big Brother house tonight in the form of Ivana Trump and Nicola T.  To be honest these two were pieces of cheese and won’t be missed.  That said it does now mean that Stephanie Beacham is the only remaining female in the house.  In any other walk of life this could equate to a bad thing.

When I eventually get back it is late.  I might regret tonight in the morning.