Thursday 11 June 2009

If voting mattered it would be illegal.

Today I wake up feeling battered and exhausted. The work stuff still lingers and it brings me down.

Despite my best efforts to be late for this train this morning I make it easily. However the well dressed walking corpse boy sits in my usual place right in front of me, which is a bad omen.

This morning I get off at Stratford choosing to grin and bear the long Nike swish of a ride that is almost the entirety of the Jubilee Line. Sitting next to me is a stunning half Asian girl, or rather she is stunning until she opens her mouth and a borderline East London/Essex twang drawls out and suddenly she does not appear so special after all.

The Jubilee Line ride is fine but unfortunately as we near/reach St Johns Wood it is one of only two stations closed this morning, which means another walk to work from Swiss Cottage this morning. My feet fucking hate me and so does God.

When I eventually reach the restaurant my feet hurt like fuck and the blisters are the size of a small country of bacteria. The time is 9.10 and there are no cars in the car park meaning I am one of the first people to arrive.

Sat outside at one of the tables is Nora who once more puts us all to shame and arrives first before anyone/everyone else. Fortunately it is a sunny day and she appears to be happily reading her book with the patience of a saint.

Once I perform alarm duties I explain to her just how easy it was to make it in today and getting off at Stratford is what I should have done yesterday in the first place, which to be honest I knew. It is strange how in these hours of industrial action the Jubilee Line remains faithful and reliable while at the weekends the line is often very disrupted.

Slowly the remainder of the office turns up and when the boss sees me in before him he is very impressed.

Today I am somewhat calmer than I was at the end of proceedings yesterday. Having slept on things the fact that I will be wasting today reproducing a spreadsheet now only irks me slightly but an apology from the person that ruined/wrecked my work would not go amiss. Alas it does not come.

As predicted boringly redoing the profit and loss spreadsheet with all the links to the accounts and budgets takes up my entire day and frustratingly sets my work back a day. If my bosses dare lean on me I will soon snap back and point out what the cause of today’s delay has been.

At 5PM the boss shows some compassion and lets us out early to contend with the strike and heinous public transport lying ahead. The Girl god bless her gives me another lift to Swiss Cottage tube station and with it I get a good seat on a next to empty tube. Tactically I sit as far away from the doors as possible so that when I finish riding the entire line at Stratford I won’t have got in the way of any people entering or exiting the train.

When the train stops at Baker Street and passengers get on I am floored and blown away when Danny Baker sits opposite me. Star struck I probably literally blush. Here is a definite hero of mine and easily the most famous Millwall supporter in the land. This has happened before; just before Christmas and the Saturday I got dragged into work (and the day Mindy nonchalantly displayed that she just did not give a fuck). Obviously he clocks me clocking him and on come the headphones. I wish I wasn’t such a goofball and felt inclined to approach him but that’s the weird thing about celebrity just because you are familiar with a person from the TV or radio and you kind of know what they are like they are still in reality strangers.

He is reading Private Eye and totally to his credit when an older lady boards the train at the next stop like a real gentleman he gives up his seat for the woman. Not only is he more talented than me with more personality, he is also better mannered. Perhaps though he was just trying to get out of my eye view.

The journey on the Jubilee Line is truly arduous this evening. I pretend to sleep for most of it to avoid the glare of angry people in a cattle truck situation hating me for my seat. When Danny Baker gets off at North Greenwich I almost sense that he is pissed off that I have remained stoic in my seat.

Our generation is the most politically correct to date in history and yet it is also the most rude for some reason. Go figure.

As the train trundles along to the eventual destination of Stratford two women get into something of a subtle catfight as they get pissy with each other over standing rights. One of the ladies looks drunk, unnaturally feisty. Maybe she is just from the wrong side of the tracks but as voices raise the entire carriage freezes in anticipation of something to tell our families about when we get home this evening. Alas after a little tension between them they separate and just proceed to pout the entire way home.

Once we get to Stratford I await what I expect will be a crowded train home to Colchester and unsurprisingly when it arrives I have to stand up until it reaches Chelmsford when I manage to snag a seat that I do not really deserve.

While I look bored out of the window fearful of incoming clouds and the rain that comes with them I also find myself spending the journey looking on the internet via my iPhone for the David Carradine photos that are apparently online. This is acting too ghoulish.

As the train nears home I see a rainbow in the distance but thankfully no rain.

Upon arriving back in Colchester I walk to my car at Balkerne Heights and do the do of seeing the parents and the dog. Soon I am heading knackered with feet that just despise me,

It is a beautiful evening and tonight some weird new comedy show begins on BBC2 called Krod Mandoon. Nora said she would be watching it and when I cast my eye across it is pretty dreadful blatantly attempting to become the Lord Of The Rings version/equivalent of Red Dwarf. Nice pair of tits in though, fresh meat.

Soon I am asleep though, the world is a vampire.