This past couple of days have not been too bad at all. On Saturday we celebrated Lynn’s birthday by assembling an IKEA TV unit round Mick and Krissy’s flat which now looks marvellous. I sneaked off to London Bridge and bought her a massive box of Leonidas chocolates, her favourite after Rococo’s in Chelsea, which I wouldn’t have had the time to visit. Then a trip to the Ministry of Spice in Evelyn Street, Deptford that is cheap as chips and highly recommended for its unusual dishes, such as the spicy lamb marinated in Bengali lime which I had.
Better news after my specs whinge is that I CAN get them fixed - for £12. Hardly going to break the bank and at least I have a good spare set as well. Opty managed to fix my current ones for nowt as well and they feel much more solid than ever before. I'll have to remember that next time I'm feeling pessimistic, which let's face it, is quite often.
On Sunday we went over to Brick Lane to pick her up a leather jacket which he managed to haggle down to £90 for cash. We first went to Petticoat Lane, and it’s changed drastically from being a reasonably good market, especially for leather goods, to being one that the average chav would be ashamed to shop at. Lots of very cheap and poor quality copies of Next and Wallis clothes. Really unimpressed. Will stick to Romford market for knock-offs, not that I buy many.
I’ve quite a bit to catch up on, so some random jottings for the time being:
First, the new flat screen telly is behaving really well (thanks parents for picking it up from Currys), and I’m so relieved our shed roof is now leak proof. The house is looking better than it has done in ages. I know this that the changes required were merely cosmetic, other than the roof, but there is something really depressing coming home to a rat-filled, messy non-snagged house. Our shed again: I was absolutely dreading going there next summer only to find the whole structure rotted through. Yet I am the worst person in the world for DIY projects. It meant giving my dad a lot of heavy duty hinting but at least the jobs that needed most doing are now done and the place is looking clean.
Bloody hell I sound like an ungrateful and incompetent sod. Incompetent I’d not deny. When it comes to things involving power tools and small bobbins of one kind or another I’ll leave that to someone else.
Mood: Much more cheerful than last Friday.
Moozik: Not playing any at the moment, watching DVDs (mainly Hitch-Hikers)
Book: New Best Horror from 2001. Need something light and easy to manage and this will do nicely, thanks very much.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Daggerdukc's appalling state of mind
(26th November 2004 but delayed due to technical aggro with broadband)
It's been a dismal couple of weeks for the Daggersdukc psyche. It's so
Bad I couldn't even write last Friday, my usual blog-day. Yet another thing
packed up yesterday, this time it was my glasses which went 'ping' during
the middle of the afternoon for no apparent reason leaving the left arm
hanging by a thread. Now I have to resort to a really grotty spare set
until either the opty can fix them or I buy another pair (there goes another 300
quid!).
I really must do something about my job. I worked out that a lot of what
is making me feel down, apart from my yearly bout of SAD, thoughts of Joanne
which still pervade after 3 months, and the fact that it's Christmas
nearly, and I'm woefully unprepared - same story year after year there,
It’s my job and sense of total, utter powerlessness it brings. OK, help me out
here: there are a number of reasons why I should keep my job and some
that a quite persuasive in making me want to leave:
So let's start with the good:
1) I am working within my comfort zone. The job lacks any challenge but
then again it's one I can do and pays a reasonable salary unless I
seriously retrain and therefore lose money for a year or more doing so.
2) I get to work two days a week from home, which means no commute. This
is generally a good thing as anyone who uses the tube on a daily basis will
confirm, unless they enjoy bouts of masochism.
3) Having a boss who knows that leaving his staff to get on with their job
is the way to go - providing his staff are competent at doing it, which I
am.
OK, I could only come up with three goodies. Not much compared to this
lot:
1) I've done it for five years now and I'm permanently bored and my brain
feels as it hasn't had a challenge in quite a while.
2) It's not a job that brings any tangible results. You know, a coal
miner digs coal and can see the results of his work by the number of wagons
taking it away. Even sales staff get to celebrate their successes, and this is a
job I myself would not care much to do. I can't believe I feel envious
towards sales staff.
3) No recognition or thanks or any acknowledgement that I exist. The only
time I get any recognition is the rare times when I screw up.
4) My colleagues are typical techie types who aren't the life and soul of
the party. This is unfortunately par for the course as to do the work we
do, we do need concentration space and time. But I need a laugh now and
then and the only humour in the office is of the cynical type. Funny
undoubtedly, but healthy it is not.
5) Although I work from home and I generally like it, I do get terribly
lonely during the day with only myself to talk to or Jon Gaunt to yell at.
This loneliness was one of the reasons I started liaising with Joanne in
the first place and I don't entirely blame myself for doing so. Everyone
needs and deserves company. Unfortunately for all three of us my feelings
towards her got totally out of control.and despite having to end our friendship
for obvious reasons, I still miss her. Sometimes it hits me quite hard at
times I least expect it. I can't play Fountains of Wayne now without
associating their music with her for example and this is a shame as its Interstate
Managers was one of my favourite CDs. London seems to be New York
Obsessed at the moment and I get a real pang of something approaching jealousy and sadness when I think of her there. And frig it, there's a travel reporter on my radio station of choice who has a very similar name to Joanne's real one. Anyway, I'm truly drifting away from the subject at hand.
6) What I actually do doesn't seem to determine the result is. If you work
hard in life, you should get a result to show for it. Not in my job: for
example, I set up a mailing to run from 11 this morning. At 4pm, the
server needed to be rebooted. A day's work wasted.
7) Neasden, the place we were transplanted to from the West End three years
ago is the most depressing part of London. What can I say that's good?
about it? Not a thing. No shops even. Not even somewhere to eat. We have our sandwiches delivered by van at 11 each morning. In one of the world's
most cosmopolitan cities, this strikes me as being just totally sad. It's a
place for losers so I feel like I am one. At least Lynn has got a
Morrisons within walking distance of her workplace and the West End shops are a few minutes by tube. Not for me, it's a half-hour slog back into London.
After spending a good chunk of my day going right through the middle, I can't
really be bothered to head back to the happening zone for a brief half
hour' s lunchbreak before having to return.
So then, what would you do?
Not connected with this at all is that my friend Angus has just started to
date a lovely woman called Corie. Good luck to them. They are both nice
People and they are both music geeks in the extreme. Corie has a 14 year
old girl so this could be the determining factor on whether it works or
not. Obviously Angus and Corie have to get on (which they seem to be doing
nicely) but I know that had I not got on with Lynn's daughter it would
Has been that much harder for me and her mother to have become as serious as we did. But for the time being, I look forward to many foursomes eating at
the venerable restaurants of Kilburn.
It's Lynn's birthday tomorrow and I haven't even got her a present. Oh
darn.
Moozik: None - our hi-fi has been transplanted to another part of the room
and is yet to be re-wired. New flat screen telly to be connected to it.
I suppose if you count downloads I've been listening to Das Ich and the
Beautiful South, quite a contrary combination.
Books: The state of my hopelessness is symbolised by my lack of interest
In reading. I completed the Handmaid's Tale last night on the train. It's
downbeat nature only enhanced my mood of grimness. I'll have to
rejuvenate the BookCourier, an electronic reading device I have about the same size as a fag packet. At least I can then just drift off if I don't like the
story.
Mood: Looking forward to seeing Lynn after her being away at a mate's last night. Missed her lots and can't wait for some hugs.
It's been a dismal couple of weeks for the Daggersdukc psyche. It's so
Bad I couldn't even write last Friday, my usual blog-day. Yet another thing
packed up yesterday, this time it was my glasses which went 'ping' during
the middle of the afternoon for no apparent reason leaving the left arm
hanging by a thread. Now I have to resort to a really grotty spare set
until either the opty can fix them or I buy another pair (there goes another 300
quid!).
I really must do something about my job. I worked out that a lot of what
is making me feel down, apart from my yearly bout of SAD, thoughts of Joanne
which still pervade after 3 months, and the fact that it's Christmas
nearly, and I'm woefully unprepared - same story year after year there,
It’s my job and sense of total, utter powerlessness it brings. OK, help me out
here: there are a number of reasons why I should keep my job and some
that a quite persuasive in making me want to leave:
So let's start with the good:
1) I am working within my comfort zone. The job lacks any challenge but
then again it's one I can do and pays a reasonable salary unless I
seriously retrain and therefore lose money for a year or more doing so.
2) I get to work two days a week from home, which means no commute. This
is generally a good thing as anyone who uses the tube on a daily basis will
confirm, unless they enjoy bouts of masochism.
3) Having a boss who knows that leaving his staff to get on with their job
is the way to go - providing his staff are competent at doing it, which I
am.
OK, I could only come up with three goodies. Not much compared to this
lot:
1) I've done it for five years now and I'm permanently bored and my brain
feels as it hasn't had a challenge in quite a while.
2) It's not a job that brings any tangible results. You know, a coal
miner digs coal and can see the results of his work by the number of wagons
taking it away. Even sales staff get to celebrate their successes, and this is a
job I myself would not care much to do. I can't believe I feel envious
towards sales staff.
3) No recognition or thanks or any acknowledgement that I exist. The only
time I get any recognition is the rare times when I screw up.
4) My colleagues are typical techie types who aren't the life and soul of
the party. This is unfortunately par for the course as to do the work we
do, we do need concentration space and time. But I need a laugh now and
then and the only humour in the office is of the cynical type. Funny
undoubtedly, but healthy it is not.
5) Although I work from home and I generally like it, I do get terribly
lonely during the day with only myself to talk to or Jon Gaunt to yell at.
This loneliness was one of the reasons I started liaising with Joanne in
the first place and I don't entirely blame myself for doing so. Everyone
needs and deserves company. Unfortunately for all three of us my feelings
towards her got totally out of control.and despite having to end our friendship
for obvious reasons, I still miss her. Sometimes it hits me quite hard at
times I least expect it. I can't play Fountains of Wayne now without
associating their music with her for example and this is a shame as its Interstate
Managers was one of my favourite CDs. London seems to be New York
Obsessed at the moment and I get a real pang of something approaching jealousy and sadness when I think of her there. And frig it, there's a travel reporter on my radio station of choice who has a very similar name to Joanne's real one. Anyway, I'm truly drifting away from the subject at hand.
6) What I actually do doesn't seem to determine the result is. If you work
hard in life, you should get a result to show for it. Not in my job: for
example, I set up a mailing to run from 11 this morning. At 4pm, the
server needed to be rebooted. A day's work wasted.
7) Neasden, the place we were transplanted to from the West End three years
ago is the most depressing part of London. What can I say that's good?
about it? Not a thing. No shops even. Not even somewhere to eat. We have our sandwiches delivered by van at 11 each morning. In one of the world's
most cosmopolitan cities, this strikes me as being just totally sad. It's a
place for losers so I feel like I am one. At least Lynn has got a
Morrisons within walking distance of her workplace and the West End shops are a few minutes by tube. Not for me, it's a half-hour slog back into London.
After spending a good chunk of my day going right through the middle, I can't
really be bothered to head back to the happening zone for a brief half
hour' s lunchbreak before having to return.
So then, what would you do?
Not connected with this at all is that my friend Angus has just started to
date a lovely woman called Corie. Good luck to them. They are both nice
People and they are both music geeks in the extreme. Corie has a 14 year
old girl so this could be the determining factor on whether it works or
not. Obviously Angus and Corie have to get on (which they seem to be doing
nicely) but I know that had I not got on with Lynn's daughter it would
Has been that much harder for me and her mother to have become as serious as we did. But for the time being, I look forward to many foursomes eating at
the venerable restaurants of Kilburn.
It's Lynn's birthday tomorrow and I haven't even got her a present. Oh
darn.
Moozik: None - our hi-fi has been transplanted to another part of the room
and is yet to be re-wired. New flat screen telly to be connected to it.
I suppose if you count downloads I've been listening to Das Ich and the
Beautiful South, quite a contrary combination.
Books: The state of my hopelessness is symbolised by my lack of interest
In reading. I completed the Handmaid's Tale last night on the train. It's
downbeat nature only enhanced my mood of grimness. I'll have to
rejuvenate the BookCourier, an electronic reading device I have about the same size as a fag packet. At least I can then just drift off if I don't like the
story.
Mood: Looking forward to seeing Lynn after her being away at a mate's last night. Missed her lots and can't wait for some hugs.
Friday, November 12, 2004
Computers and blind people
Well despite my good intentions of keeping this blog up to date I’ve been rather lax. This is due to a number of things:
1) I tend to write this at work drink lunch breaks on times when our database is doing something computer hungry and therefore freeing up my fingers to do something less boring instead. This patently has not happened this week. This is because some data I put on the system over the weekend a few Saturdays ago was the wrong data and I’ve therefore had to unpick everything I’ve put on manually, as the system does not have mass undelete feature. I’ve lost the will the live a few times. Give me a job in advertising, right now, please. For those of you in advertising who hate it, feel free to swap jobs with me any time you choose.
2) I’ve had a delightful combination of winter and post-Joanne blues this week. I’ve only just started to cheer up.
A few other things that have pissed me off:
1) Our rat, which I shall call Rufus this time, has returned. This is after Rodney, who ate us out of house and home and probably gave us a small dose of Weil’s disease each. Rat woman came over on Wednesday to slaughter him with Klerat. Good riddance.
2) Hot water packed up on Friday, and its only just been repaired as we were out in Nottingham last weekend. Did I mention this already? The trams, by the way, were cool. I like the way they suddenly go into super-fast mode round about Wilkinson Street.
3) Small bedroom TV packed up.
Now all’s we need is the washing machine or some other major appliance to die for that nice pre-Christmas spend up we really don’t need.
But, as I say, I started to cheer up this afternoon. The main reason for this cheer is that I’ve started participating in a group called Blindoscafe, run by and for, surprise surprise, blind people in the UK. After lurking for a bit I got the impression that the main players really were quite a good bunch of people. Stupid sense of humour all round, with a degree of seriousness for when it’s appropriate. My only gripe with this list is that there is TOO MUCH TRAFFIC. I mean, 200 e-mails a day is a lot to wade though innit?
Here’s my sociological stance on blindies for what its worth:
Blind people seem to fall into too categories:
a. Ultra-conservative, non-adventurous whingers for whom a night on the town consists of a McDonalds before getting the last bus home at half-eight.
b. Wild, massive hedonists. Pleasure involves getting plastered by 9, heading out for a really hot curry, then going to a late night gay club (we get the sympathy vote from most gays, odd fact but true) for a some late night drinks. Then getting a cab home as it gets light and falling asleep, waking up a few hours later on a pukey pillow..
There does not seem to be a middling type of person, as there is with the majority of sighted people. We either are one or the other. Psychologists and sociologists more qualified than me can explain this phenomena I’m sure but I’m too much a part of this world to be able to give a reasonable explanation as to why.
Sounds: Garbage, Robbie Williams doing the ‘swing thang’ and its really better than ought to be. The CD is a Chrimbo present for Lynn but I had to listen to it on the way home from work and its OK. When I think about what I used to listen in the 90 and early 00s and what I like now, I really am turning into a Radio 2 fart. I suppose the main reason for this is that GLR, my station of choice, has turned mainly into a talk station. Don’t get me wrong, Danny Baker is the best thing going on the radio right now, but the only equivilant is Radio 6, a digital station. I do have a digi radio in the house but its not half as accessible as an ordinary analogue radio.
Mood: It’s Friday, all the better for it.
Books: Can’t be bothered to read right now. Just scan Metro on the tube, that’s about as intellectual as things have got recently. Help me, my brain is turning to blancmange.
1) I tend to write this at work drink lunch breaks on times when our database is doing something computer hungry and therefore freeing up my fingers to do something less boring instead. This patently has not happened this week. This is because some data I put on the system over the weekend a few Saturdays ago was the wrong data and I’ve therefore had to unpick everything I’ve put on manually, as the system does not have mass undelete feature. I’ve lost the will the live a few times. Give me a job in advertising, right now, please. For those of you in advertising who hate it, feel free to swap jobs with me any time you choose.
2) I’ve had a delightful combination of winter and post-Joanne blues this week. I’ve only just started to cheer up.
A few other things that have pissed me off:
1) Our rat, which I shall call Rufus this time, has returned. This is after Rodney, who ate us out of house and home and probably gave us a small dose of Weil’s disease each. Rat woman came over on Wednesday to slaughter him with Klerat. Good riddance.
2) Hot water packed up on Friday, and its only just been repaired as we were out in Nottingham last weekend. Did I mention this already? The trams, by the way, were cool. I like the way they suddenly go into super-fast mode round about Wilkinson Street.
3) Small bedroom TV packed up.
Now all’s we need is the washing machine or some other major appliance to die for that nice pre-Christmas spend up we really don’t need.
But, as I say, I started to cheer up this afternoon. The main reason for this cheer is that I’ve started participating in a group called Blindoscafe, run by and for, surprise surprise, blind people in the UK. After lurking for a bit I got the impression that the main players really were quite a good bunch of people. Stupid sense of humour all round, with a degree of seriousness for when it’s appropriate. My only gripe with this list is that there is TOO MUCH TRAFFIC. I mean, 200 e-mails a day is a lot to wade though innit?
Here’s my sociological stance on blindies for what its worth:
Blind people seem to fall into too categories:
a. Ultra-conservative, non-adventurous whingers for whom a night on the town consists of a McDonalds before getting the last bus home at half-eight.
b. Wild, massive hedonists. Pleasure involves getting plastered by 9, heading out for a really hot curry, then going to a late night gay club (we get the sympathy vote from most gays, odd fact but true) for a some late night drinks. Then getting a cab home as it gets light and falling asleep, waking up a few hours later on a pukey pillow..
There does not seem to be a middling type of person, as there is with the majority of sighted people. We either are one or the other. Psychologists and sociologists more qualified than me can explain this phenomena I’m sure but I’m too much a part of this world to be able to give a reasonable explanation as to why.
Sounds: Garbage, Robbie Williams doing the ‘swing thang’ and its really better than ought to be. The CD is a Chrimbo present for Lynn but I had to listen to it on the way home from work and its OK. When I think about what I used to listen in the 90 and early 00s and what I like now, I really am turning into a Radio 2 fart. I suppose the main reason for this is that GLR, my station of choice, has turned mainly into a talk station. Don’t get me wrong, Danny Baker is the best thing going on the radio right now, but the only equivilant is Radio 6, a digital station. I do have a digi radio in the house but its not half as accessible as an ordinary analogue radio.
Mood: It’s Friday, all the better for it.
Books: Can’t be bothered to read right now. Just scan Metro on the tube, that’s about as intellectual as things have got recently. Help me, my brain is turning to blancmange.
Friday, November 05, 2004
A couple of other blogs I like
I'm not a great blog reader, simply because I've an addictive personality and would easily find myself sacked from my job and divorced. It could easily become the internet equivilant of daytime telly for me. But I thought I'd just mention a couple of other bloggers gear I read every now and then.
Firstly, Veghead's 'bologs'.
www.fatsquirrel.org/bologs/veghead/
Recommended for his cynicism and rantings about SE London life, computers, New Cross, Goldsmiths', sandwich fillings etc.
And
www.heyjo.com
The sort of person I'd love to chat with for a long smoke-filled evening over a drink or six. Wonderfully down-to-earth and a film buff like few others. I'm not a film nerd at all, but I think she could convert me. And she's one of the few people I can actually "hear" talking via her writings though I've never heard her voice in the flesh.
So there you go.
Firstly, Veghead's 'bologs'.
www.fatsquirrel.org/bologs/veghead/
Recommended for his cynicism and rantings about SE London life, computers, New Cross, Goldsmiths', sandwich fillings etc.
And
www.heyjo.com
The sort of person I'd love to chat with for a long smoke-filled evening over a drink or six. Wonderfully down-to-earth and a film buff like few others. I'm not a film nerd at all, but I think she could convert me. And she's one of the few people I can actually "hear" talking via her writings though I've never heard her voice in the flesh.
So there you go.
Bush and all that
Well I have to say it. Like just about every literate person outside of Middle America: Bush. In. Sad day for America, a country I cannot help but like despite itself; not to mention the rest of us Brits who live under his indirect leadership. I feel so sorry for those sensible Americans who didn't vote for for this prize winning arsehole. I was reading in the NY Times yesterday about some moderately left-wing people in San Fran, and this is America where left wing is fairly moderate. Anyone vegan for example would probably be counted as a radical. The article described how sad these chaps were - in despair where the words it used - to be living under another four years of Bush. I got the same sense of battening down the hatches we had in Britain us moderate left-leaners onwards had after the Tories were voted in after the 1991 election. And I was only 21 then.
We can't even accuse anyone of vote rigging. Yet.
The Gaggia coffee machine arrived today and I've got to say even though I was a sceptical bunny about paying £365 for it, it does make the most wonderful brew known to mankind, or at least me. And it also means I just have to heave my fat body downstairs of a morning and hit one button for this glorious liquid to be produced. A wonderful thing overall.
Off to Nottingham tomorrow for the trams and because neither of us have been there before.
Tonight, the wife and I are watching Saturday Night and Sunday Morning to get us in the mood.
Kizzie is sh1tting herself over the fireworks which are constant after about 4.30pm. On the one hand, I have to feel sorry for her. She was so scared on Wednesday she try to take Lynn into every house along our road, she even tried jumping into cars - it didn't matter to her that they were all parked and locked up. On the other, I really wouldn't like her to kill the wife while she has one of her many "I'm going to freeze in the middle of the road" moments. So she has to go. Sorry Kizz.
Moozik: Art of Noise (Seduction of Claude Debussy), Pernice Brothers, Elliott Smith
Mood: Some sort of recovery, maybe. We'll see. I'm still emotionally riding the roller-coaster and get quite maudlin when I think of Joanne for too long.
We can't even accuse anyone of vote rigging. Yet.
The Gaggia coffee machine arrived today and I've got to say even though I was a sceptical bunny about paying £365 for it, it does make the most wonderful brew known to mankind, or at least me. And it also means I just have to heave my fat body downstairs of a morning and hit one button for this glorious liquid to be produced. A wonderful thing overall.
Off to Nottingham tomorrow for the trams and because neither of us have been there before.
Tonight, the wife and I are watching Saturday Night and Sunday Morning to get us in the mood.
Kizzie is sh1tting herself over the fireworks which are constant after about 4.30pm. On the one hand, I have to feel sorry for her. She was so scared on Wednesday she try to take Lynn into every house along our road, she even tried jumping into cars - it didn't matter to her that they were all parked and locked up. On the other, I really wouldn't like her to kill the wife while she has one of her many "I'm going to freeze in the middle of the road" moments. So she has to go. Sorry Kizz.
Moozik: Art of Noise (Seduction of Claude Debussy), Pernice Brothers, Elliott Smith
Mood: Some sort of recovery, maybe. We'll see. I'm still emotionally riding the roller-coaster and get quite maudlin when I think of Joanne for too long.
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