Thursday 25 June 2009

Born into this.

Staying awake past midnight last night was a mistake with hindsight as today I am the walking dead although in this current climate that pretty much means I will fit right in with all the other drones around me.

As I get in my car this morning again the odour is nowhere near going away, what am I going to do? When I park up I leave the windows open ever so slightly in the hope that a little air will make some kind of difference.

Heading to the station once again my iPod Shuffle is deciding it doesn’t want to work today so again I am back on the iPhone which unfortunately doesn’t have the greatest selection of hits on it.

The train this morning is as per. A few regular faces are still missing but I don’t mind as this means I get my corner seat and I am able to slump against the corner of the carriage in an attempt at some additional sleep/rest.

For some reason today people appear to be staring at me on the train. Fletcher-Dervish in particular stares me at while the woman that looks like an inflated skeleton doesn’t look too impressed by me either.

The soundtrack to my journey is two more episodes of Tank Riot, this time the new religion episodes. One of the religions they cover in the show is the Church Of The Subgenius and its figurehead “Bob” Dobbs. All in all this totally sounds like a movement I could get into.

We hit Liverpool Street at 8.06; dare I add any more comment to that fact?

When I reach the restaurant this morning there appears to be some severe meeting already going on. I say “good morning” and barely get a response, such is the apparent intensity.

The Girl is not in today which sadly means more telephone duties but also a quieter day.

Slowly people begin to slope in and early on I am flying. When I look at the time and see it is 10.30 I have already accomplished a ridiculous amount of work already today, which can only be good for everybody. However with this self recognition comes some kind of slump and soon the peak is over as the reality of the hot summer day kicks in along with office lethargy.

Work is weird at the moment. After the hardcore panic of last Thursday’s review deadline and Friday’s bank deadline I am currently stuck between two jobs and not really able to make any progress on either. I can’t do June’s accounts because June is still happening and I can’t do too much on the new company’s accounts because they are currently in the hands of the man with the walking stick. So unfortunately with such an unfocused reality things begin to meander.

For lunch I have chicken coated in parmesan and breadcrumbs along with linguini and baby tomatoes. I wonder what the poor people are doing.

The afternoon does not bode much better as the heat just increases and the office gets more uncomfortable. As my eyes near closing the lady sat opposite me puts me to shame with her at least attempting to do some work. Around 3PM though I have already thrown in the towel on proceedings and am scrapping around on my accounts.

When the manager comes in asking for a little help with the photocopier and switching from A4 to A3 we basically queue up to help him out of boredom. As we enter the room with the photocopier we find ourselves confronted with the sight of our posh boss laid out on a desk speaking on his mobile. Now that is a laidback boss. As we giggle at the sight he takes the opportunity to remind us of his slipped disc (or disk?). All apologies.

Not before time 5.30 comes around and we are flying out of the door (but not before I get a conference call back for the boss that I fucked up first time around – bloody phones). Again this evening the tubes are sweltering and miserable.

When I eventually board the 6.20 I just about snag a seat but as I do so I catch my arse pocket on the arm of the chair and a very loud ripping sound occurs and much repressed mockery with it. To my left a group of three people on a business jolly exchange yuks for the entirety of the journey until the ticket inspector comes along and points out that the fat lady has the wrong dated ticket and promptly he turns into a little Nazi about things. Wow, not only do National Express provide a poor service, they border on abusive while maintaining it.

The train gets back to Colchester around 7.15 and it is a long walk ahead facing me. I’m getting too old or too out of shape to do this every day now.

Getting to Balkerne Heights this evening I find myself worryingly out of breath and with a heart sunk deeper than it necessarily should be.

Back home at Bohm Grove I sail out the evening watching bad comedy television and this week I watch TNT with a different mindset/attitude looking out for Crosby. I appear to miss him.

Just as I prepare to go to sleep Stevo begins texting and emailing me asking “has Michael Jackson died?” This is news to me and when I check the BBC website it indeed appears that he has been rushed to hospital off the back of a heart complaint. Oh dear, this isn’t good.

A little later sadly it gets confirmed that Michael Jackson has apparently died. The news hits Facebook like a rocket as everybody suddenly turns into a comedian and makes their bad jokes. Truly though there is no sport in making Michael Jackson jokes, every possible thing that could have ever been said about him already has been.

Switching to the TV news and it turns to rolling coverage from outside the hospital. Apparently it is was fire ambulance that had taken him to the hospital where he eventually passed away. That immediately sounds fishy.

Hovering around Facebook to catch/see people’s reactions it only serves to depress. Tom hits me on Facebook messenger I just cyber shrug. Then The Girl’s friend Michelle strangely begins chatting to me, not about Michael Jackson just about how my day was. I immediately begin complaining about all the bad jokes already circulating Facebook and the internet. It is at this point AOL crashes on me which I begin to wonder whether it is MJ induced but ultimately it serves as a good thing because it keeps me away from all the shitty negative comments annoying me.

I continue to watch the rolling news as any kind of arsehole gets dragged out to comment on the situation. Soon the news is in a loop and “information” is being repeated rendering the whole coverage as informative as GMTV. With this I finally go to sleep around 1AM surprisingly saddened by the death of the guy, a person whose music I have pretty much always despised. Go figure.

I brace myself for an annoying day ahead tomorrow.