Wednesday 10 February 2010

Dream: I meet up with others for Crosby’s birthday.  It looks like somewhere on Caledonian Road.  Upon arrival I don’t really know anyone at the do, which at the time is slightly/sparsely attended being the beginning of the party.  I think I recognise Tim with the pot from ATP there.  In the end I wind up hanging out with a bunch of egghead types.  It is mostly mature students who are now wanting to relive their youths and join sororities (much like myself I fear).  One guy is decadent and 104 years old.  Basically this dream mutates into the movie Old School.

I wake up this morning into bitter cold.  What kind of night have we just seen?  I wonder if that has anything to do with my leaving the front door open last night.

Soon I find out as when I step out of the front door this morning I slip on the step and genuinely hurt myself, banging my knee and doing a variation of the splits in the process.  I wonder if that has something to do with my leaving the door open last night.  I only do it in the hope that somebody will pass by during the night and steal the Pig Personal Trainer’s bike.

Today the world has a subtle dusting of new snow covering and it remains a pretty sight.  I am really shocked that the snow has extended on so far into the year.

My day fails to improve when I get to the train station to discover that my £4600 Travelcard is not working at the barriers.  How come a ticket that costs more than my first two cars combined cannot continue working for its entire duration of a year?  What a cheap fucking organisation National Express is.

Once on the train a lady sits next to my left and proceeds to keep doing little circles with her foot/ankle.  Why is this a turn on?  What kind of sick fetish is this?  One of my counsellor/shrinks used to do this, which prompted me to research it (the body language) on the internet, which came to the conclusion that this was a gesture of expressing a sense and feeling of superiority.  So is this what this lady is feeling right now while sat next to me?  Is she reading a good book?

As the train stops at Witham today very few people actually board.  What is going on with this place?

Later at Chelmsford a fat Alastair Campbell lookalike sits opposite me.  He is reading a book called “Texas Death Row.”  He is hardcore.  As he reads the book his lips move with the words.  Harsh.  Across the aisle to his right is sat a Wilfrid Brambell lookalike and to his left is a blonde Kelly Osbourne lookalike.  Is seeing all these lookalikes of people from the TV a growing sign of insanity?

The lookalike festival is completed when a Maggie Gyllenhaal (complete with mole) sits to Wilfrid’s right.  That’s a good look.

When I finally get to Liverpool Street still my Travelcard insists on not working.  Is this bad run of luck all due to my leaving the door open?

While waiting at the tube platform some enormous woman comes up to me and asks “how do I know which line this train is?”  I remove my iPhone headphones and respond “this is the Hammersmith Line” to which she responds “how do I know which is the Circle And District Line?” at which point I just reply with ESP and body language saying “why are you asking me?”  At this point she stomps off with a sarcastic “no idea.”  Fuck me, show a bit of gratitude.  Ultimately I guess I should have just gone with my impulse reaction which was no to give her the time of day.

Beyond this there is nothing to report from the remainder of the journey.  When I emerge at St Johns Wood however I find myself being bombarded by a slight blizzard of snow.  It is genuinely fucking stifling as the wind really grabs hold of it.  Typically shortly after getting into work it stops.

Today the computers have not been repaired and the network is still down.  This situation has never been this bad before.  In addition to this woe The Girl is off ill again but then again what would be the use of having the three of us all in doing nothing anyway.  Things pick up though when the Filipino comes in and with her she brings cookies.

With the networks down from here once the boss is gone I wind up having a pretty good morning of pottering on with my own stuff on my flashdrive.  With this spare/free/down time I am able to set up my DS FIFA 2010 spreadsheets and write the next three Facebook culls.

Sadly the freedom of the morning comes to a close when the consultant comes in.  I had been bracing myself for this little piece of misfortune.  When he asks me how the new company accounts are coming along I inform him that we have “downed tools.”  At first he sounds dismayed but then I explain how our computers are down at which point I now exhibit dismay.

Finally the IT Guy gets in touch in the early afternoon and he says that he is at Farringdon and is 40 minutes away.  He asks if anything is working yet.  What, just like that?

Around this time the angry boss requests that one of us go to the post office for him to send some important documents recorded delivery.  Like a fool I volunteer to do the trip and with this I grab the envelope just in time to run the risk abuse from school kids having their lunch.  I head towards Finchley Road where apparently there is a small post office.  Like fuck there is so instead I wind up in the Swiss Cottage post office at lunchtime when everybody appears to be posting shit or screaming “gimme gimme gimme” into the windows.

The post office in Swiss Cottage proves an illuminating experience, it is truly horrible.  As the queue moves at a snails pace with the staff rocking with lethargy I watch in horror as the woman in front of me in the queue appears to be smoking her pen.  At first I think it is emitting smoke but when she refills it with some kind of powder it turns out that it is spewing out sickly smelling dust.  What the fuck is this?  Drugs?  I still don’t know now just what she was doing.  Is this some kind of Eastern European or Asian form of tobacco or Nicorette patching?  Subtly and slightly I freak out, fearing that the stink will attach itself to my coat.  Maybe it was drugs, indeed her movements would point towards her being stoned.

It is with a sense of great relief that I eventually get served and find myself able to escape while the Chinese girl and black guy appear to still be arguing with the counter over whether their lottery ticket is a winner.  That or whether their Dole card is a winner.  They were here when I arrived and at this rate they will probably be here when the shop shuts this evening.

When I finally get back to the office the IT Guy has arrived and the computers soon get hooked back up and now I find myself being pressurised into getting the accounts finish.  This does not rub well with me.

Eventually the consultant exits and leaves me alone.  From here I get the work done around 6.10PM.

Tonight I am heading to Leicester Square Theatre to see a play called BOUNCERS.  As I head down to Green Park when the tube stops at Baker Street I briefly panic when I think I see Ms Moriarty board.  Luckily I soon notice this person is feminine so panic over.

I turn out to be the first (and for sometime only) person in the audience.  The show is being staged in the basement of Leicester Square Theatre, which isn’t much larger than somebody’s lounge.  They couldn’t even paper the audience.  Slightly embarrassed by this I grab a beer and take my seat.  Eventually five other people (all female) fill things out.

The play holds interest for me as it is written by a gentleman called John Godber and when I was a youngster in 1987 on Friday nights on BBC2 there was a comedy musical show called The Ritz, which was written by the same guy.  It is one of those shows that you remember from your youth but has never surfaced on video or DVD, one of those TV shows you occasionally question the existence of as a result.  So tonight I am hoping to revisit such happy times for me.

Just before the play begins I find myself distracted by a gorgeous Asian lady (I suspect Filipino) sat opposite the room as she looks over and smiles as I recoil.

BOUNCERS turns out to be a very skilfully crafted and executed play as four actors interweave and play a whole host of characters (both male and female).  With no set and just a black wall with four men dressed in penguin suits it requires the imagination to work overtime as the different roles get clearly defined in comedic manner.

By taking in all characters and characteristics of the clubbing ritual the four of them play out the actions, motions and conventions of the preparation and aftermath of the clubbing experience.  Via the four actors we experience a group ladies out on the pull, a group of lads out on the lash and the four bouncers themselves in their sad roles of babysitter, referee and bullfighter.

At regular intervals there is a moment of clarity as the head bouncer (the oldest head) takes the time to explain what he sees in/from the people on a regular basis.  He tries to make sense of the ritual while soberly noting just how ugly and demeaning the whole process is to everyone involved.  He points out what makes his and his colleagues’ life/job hard and how they can spot incidents from a mile away.

As the interval kicks in I am quite sure that the lady is smiling at me again.  With this in mind as usual I do nothing.

Soon after the show resumes as the BOUNCERS now patrol the club as by now the night is in full swing and everyone is in the midst of clubbing hell.  Various sketches and mini dramas all get linked together with razor sharp proficiency before a quite frankly terrifying climax occurs off the back of an after hours mistakes by one of the bouncers with the blue movie.

The play ends with the rapturous applause of six people with much appreciation expressed through so few fingers.  It took more people to put on this show tonight than enjoyed it.

At this point a normal person would probably acknowledge the gorgeous lady that appears to have been looking over all evening but instead I make a spectacle of putting my coat on and leaving.  I fuck off like a numb nuts, dragging it out as if to say “here’s what you could have won.”

I fall out into the Chinatown evening where the orange lanterns remain hung ready for the upcoming Chinese New Year.  It is a cheaply spectacular sight, the kind you wish/hope to see every time you step out this way.

With the night still relatively early I manage to get a decent train home (the 9.30PM Norwich train) before spending the duration of the journey shrinking with depression at my inability to approach the lady from this evening.

I ride home listening to the new Gil Scott-Heron record and it’s not strong.  More disappointment.

When I get back to Colchester station there is a window still open so I am able to get a replacement Travelcard and avoid further barrier complications tomorrow.  The little things.

Once finally back home TV is a wasteland and soon I find myself in bed passing out.