Saturday 27 February 2010

Saturday 27 February 2010

The weekend.  Thank god.  There is nothing more to be done at this time, the week has tired me out and awaking at 7.45AM on a Saturday when the opportunity to remain in slumber really does not appear to ring much sense to me.  At least I am waking in the light at the moment.  Small things.

Of course I go to Asda, it wouldn’t be Saturday otherwise.  As I troll over to the supermarket the day looks beautiful and fresh, there is a sunny element to proceedings which all in all suggests promise for the day even though I still feel shattered from the week behind me.

Almost immediately upon stepping inside the store I am confronted by the site of The Crab red-faced and reading the local rag while his wife flicks through the lifestyle glossies.  What the fuck must he think of this?  Their routine is almost as bad as mine.

Like a sloth I stagger around the shop having barely woken up.  I don’t really know what I want today, all food now fills me with dread as it all appears to have been deemed unhealthy by one source or another in the media.  To some extent I am almost reaching a paranoid stage of not wanting to touch or buy any food stuff offered in the shops.  For a long time now my weekly basket has contained more drinks than actual food stuffs and this I suspect is a trend that will forever continue.

Food shopping makes me feel unhealthy, it embarrasses me and causes blushes.  Its all about the staples – milk, meat, caffeine, cereal.  There is no room for vegetables in this basket.  It perhaps highlights how sad this existence is when I get excited by the fact that Lipton green tea is on promotion at this time.

Eventually I get to the self service checkout where invariably the scanner winds up fucking up a couple of times.  Today the nice lady that tends to these checkouts is not working and instead it is the less charitable lady, the hardnosed lump that makes it evident that she doesn’t live a very nice existence.

The self service checkout has now become key to my shopping existence.  I realised this week that I use it in order to avoid human contact with the till girl and avoid having to make small talk.  This also comes coupled by my genuine shame and embarrassment over the contents of my basket, I don’t even like the idea of other customers behind me in the queue seeing what I am buying.  As I scan my purchases this morning it quickly becomes evident to me how I scan the most embarrassing and unhealthy stuff first, stuffing them swiftly into my bags in the hope that nobody has spotted me buying cocktail sausages and honey mustard to put onto them.  I don’t hang about.

When I get home on cue as per routine I listen to the Danny Baker show which today features Matt Dawson playing the Sausage Sandwich Game.  Now here is a person I really dislike, he reminds me of too many brownnosers from my past who act with a degree of confidence and over familiarity that just does not feel due.  As the game ploughs on he begins to sound more and more frustrated about getting involved he slowly begins to reveal his true temperament and act like an uppity wanker.  Later in the show Danny introduces the concept of the Shirt Of Hurt for Sports Relief and when his guest Adrian Chiles (a West Brom fan) comes on he makes him try on a Wolves shirt.  This concept is somewhat wack.

After the show ends I find myself still feeling tired from the week and after a failed and aborted attempt to write I return to bed to watch my Alas Smith & Jones DVD.  Surprisingly the show doesn’t necessarily hold up very well, which really surprises me.

Obviously I fall asleep watching TV in bed before reawakening panicked because I want to head to my parents and watch the Chelsea v Man City game because it is in essence John Terry v Wayne Bridge.

I fuck up royally and fail to leave in good time leaving at 12.40PM for a 12.45PM kick off.  To add to my problems the traffic is jammed and it is while listening to the game on Radio Five that I hear of the Wayne Bridges handshake snub of John Terry.

To me this is a truly great moment, an act that I’d like to think I would repeat.  For some reason in life I get criticised for snubbing people who have done me wrong, as if I am supposed to acknowledge an individual that has wasted my time and money and made me angry.  For some reason not to speak to such a person is seen as immature in this day and age of hypersensitivity and warped interpretation of political correctness.  Hopefully Bridges will not be subject to such criticism.

When I finally get to my parents’ place their old South African neighbour Bob is there.  I think this may be the first time I have seen him in a year and a half and I have to concede that despite initially really disliking him these days he is sorely missed, he truly was the best neighbour that my parents have had living in their flat (condo?)

Not longer after I arrive he leaves which puts me in the position to watch the remainder of the Man City v Chelsea game which surprisingly sees City trounce the eventual nine man Chelsea 4-2.  Included in the Man City haul is Carlos Tevez scoring perhaps the softest goal in football history, a goal made slightly suspicious by what appears to be a spring (a wire?) attached to his ear.  Regardless this is truly a great result, maybe even a great day for football.

After the game I head into town to buy a ticket for the Richard Herring gig at the Colchester Arts Centre next month.  Once I get it I stagger properly into town where the poor people have headed to like drones.

Walking through town I clock a woman staring at my crotch area.  Does she fancy me?  Does she want some?  Nope, my flies are open.  Not that there is anything to see here at this time.

Today I don’t feel too good otherwise I would have treated myself to a Starbucks.  Predictably I wind up in Waterstones where I buy “Hunger” by Knut Hamsun off the back off Billy Childish’s recommendation.

Returning to my parents I quickly learn that Millwall are beating Hartlepool 1-0 through yet another Neil Harris goal.  Eventually this is how the game ends, continuing our roll.

From here I snag some dinner at my parents while Stoke v Arsenal plays out in the background on Sky Sports.  Tonight sadly the most eventful thing to happen is Ryan Shawcross (trying to impress for England) performing a horror tackle on Aaron Ramsey and breaking his leg.  It is an incident that is too horrific for Sky to even show an action replay of (something I have never heard of previously).  Otherwise though the game is dull and as I head home the score is 1-1.  I later learn that Arsenal eventually win the game 3-1.

Originally the intention for this evening was to start but it just doesn’t happen, the words don’t come.  Instead I polish off a bottle of Jagermeister but it doesn’t kickstart the juices.

It is weird watching game shows on TV these days and viewing £100,000 as being not very much money.  Certainly it isn’t enough to afford a house in this day and age and if you are on a team of four or five other contestants it really does begin to dwindle, seemingly to the point that it will barely pay for a new car.  This however is the flash person’s investment because if an individual scores a share arriving at £20,000 it is probably more than likely they already have this in either bank loans, overdraft or credit card debt.  Quite frankly to gain such a prize could be view almost as necessary to put food on a family’s table.  This day and age.

As the night gets late I happen across Sons Of Anarchy on one of the Freeview channels.  It’s a great show, perfect Saturday night viewing for those not quite in the fast lane.

Eventually I head to bed tired and with this otherwise being the worst night in history of Saturday TV I soon pass out.