We Never Do Have The Time...

Just a quick blog entry while I wait for some cooking to be done. That is, my style of cooking - bung something under the grill :)

I was in the city core doing my usual Sunday morning recycle run and grocery grab, and was awaiting my ride home via the sick joke that is public transport on a Sunday. (Seriously, I laugh when I'm in London and hear people moan about it there. Imagine a Tube system that ran once per hour...) Anyway, while waiting I was listening to the church bells ringing out from the nearby "kirk" as we call them here, which is a nice sound to hear, even though I'm not religious. Then the church bells stopped and the clock chimes kicked in, chiming eleven. Of course, I instinctively looked at my watch, set to what one of my school teachers used to call "BBC time"...which said 10.50.

Ten minutes early!! You know, back in the old days, we used to have public clocks in every town square which told proper time. They were a source of civic pride, properly maintained and you could literally set your watch by them (and had to, as they were a lot less accurate back then). Nowadays, they just don't seem to care anymore. One of the bells of this clock hasn't worked for months, giving a strange "fill in the blanks" quality to the Big Ben-style chimes...

Of course, we don't really need them these days. On my wrist is a watch which receives radio signals from atomic clocks in northern England and southern Germany. It aligns itself with them every night, puts itself forward and back for summer time, and is apparently accurate to the millisecond. And it's no Rolex - it's a Casio which cost about eight ounces of silver.

But still, it's a shame we don't have accurate public clocks anymore. I'm not saying they should be atomic - people in their daily lives don't need that level of precision, but I think we can do a bit better than ten minutes, yeah? The only public clock like that in the UK nowadays seems to be a certain one on the Houses of Parliament. Ironic, considering the amount of liars who work there.

Is it time for my lunch yet?

I Hate Myself And I Want Some Bass

OK, so I'm sitting in the dark musing on how much my life sucks right now, like some moody teenage girl or something. And I am not a teenager, or a girl, although I can get a bit moody sometimes. Again, I had plans to do something with today, and I didn't... my sleeping pattern is once again in shreds and I'm beginning to think this is all there ever will be. This, babes, is as good as it's ever going to get. So pass the red wine and try not to think too hard about it.

When I'm in this sort of mood I often find myself playing certain tracks and concentrating just on the drums, or preferably, like here, just the bassline. I'm not sure why that is. It can take my mind back to when I was fifteen or so, at the school disco - it's near the end of the night and the slow ones are beginning to get played, and yet again, the girl I fancy doesn't want to dance with me, so I just stand on the sidelines of the dancefloor, swaying slightly like an extra from Top Of The Pops and listening deeply to the music.

There seems to be something about the bassline to a good track that I can latch on to. So I'll probably be seeking out a lot more YouTube clips like this tonight as I work my way through the Beaujolais and stand in my lounge air-bassing like a good'un. And then go and lie in bed for a few hours and start the treadmill all over again. Apologies if this entry doesn't make much sense - if it doesn't, just enjoy the music. No doubt I'll feel differently in the morning. Wouldn't bet the paycheck on it, though.

I do get incredibly black sometimes, don't I? Sorry and all that. Still, at least it's not the usual Pink Floyd tracks, so we can be thankful for small mercies I suppose...

Chronologically Confused

And for once I don't mean in the musical sense, although I do find myself flicking through the tracks of what I think I'm going to start calling the "golden quarter-century" (1964-1989)

No, it's my sleeping pattern, which once again is wrecked... I dozed off in mid-afternoon, leaving the heating on, and woke up five and a half hours later sweating to death and feeling pretty grotty. Didn't feel like doing anything much after that, so that's another day where all I've done pretty much is work and sleep. The original plan was to get through the pile of ironing I have while watching some fantastic TV I've got on my Sky+ box - but then the original plan was scuppered by a much harder working day than I expected, and probably by that lovely London Porter beer from Greenwich I had a glass of when I got home. I had earned it, though, I felt!

I didn't get much sleep last night either, due to Groupie coming over - but I am in no way complaining about that, I'd not seen her for days and it was lovely sitting on the sofa sharing brandy flavoured coffee with her and having a laugh. Seriously, we should just start a tape recorder running and mine it for possible publication as a podcast, some of the the things we get talking about.

It's just the side effect of having to get up for work at 05.00. I've always dealt with this by sleeping in late afternoon ("four hours in the day and four in the night") but I keep thinking to myself I shouldn't be doing this as I have a history of waking up and thinking "well, that's the day almost over, no point in doing anything else now". Then I tend to think of the day as wasted, despite the fact I've been at work all day - but I tend to think of that as not counting towards anything.

Maybe I should think about seeking alternative employment. Or maybe I should stop being so hard on myself.

Absent Without Care

You may remember last week I mentioned that I had to go to a disciplinary hearing for "taking too much time off" after my four-day absence when the pain and tiredness I'd been suffering from for quite a while eventually became too much. This was all automatically generated - basically, if your absences meet a particular criteria (in my case, two within six months) you get hauled upstairs for a carpeting. Well, that took place on Tuesday and to be honest went a lot better than I expected, probably due to me immediately opening with the fact I thought all this was a complete waste of time as this was all an automatic process, the company has very little leeway with the rules it drew up for itself and I fully expected to walk out of that room with what in effect was a suspended dismissal. The interviewer (one of the managers) visibly softened his approach and spun the interview out for about double the time it was scheduled for, taking copious notes and saying that he would, in fact, go away and think about the decision. Which he did, for four days - so I must have had some sort of effect.

However, it came as no surprise to learn this morning that the decision had gone against me. He handed me a sealed letter containing his decision - and then promptly told me what he'd decided and why, so there wasn't much point in opening the letter (and I still haven't, and probably won't) I'm not angry at him - he clearly wanted to make sure I got a fair hearing and regretted the fact he had to do this, and I understand that his boss will be breathing down his neck to justify the decision he made. Still, it is a bit of a bugger and I'll have to tread softly for the next twelve moons or so.

I had the last laugh though. There was very little work to be done today, probably due to the Easter weekend, so during a quiet period I slipped away, caught the overground into the city core and treated myself to a slap-up breakfast. No-one saw me leave - I made sure of that - and I did return later to complete what little work there was, so no-one even noticed I'd been away. Not that there'd have been a big fuss made given the circumstances, but I still think there'd be something said about me deserting my duty to stuff my face on the company's dime. I just was past caring at that point, and felt I needed some time on my own to get my head straight.

There was no comparison to London's Tube, of course, but travelling on public transport early on the Saturday morning (before the feral scum emerge from their pits) was a pleasurable experience, as was the sausage, coffee and pancakes with maple syrup :) It made me think of happier times, and also reinforced my belief that when I organize something myself under my own schedule it seems to work a lot better. I just wish I could do that every day, or even every working Saturday!

The Wrong Kind Of Nostalgia?

I should really be doing something more worthwhile than writing this blog entry, you know. Like drawing up another grocery order for dispatch tout suite. There's virtually no chocolate in the house, and virtually no alcohol save for one bottle of cherry beer which I really want to give to Groupie. Naturally I am aware of the fact that chocolate and alcohol are not the two most important food groups...

What I have been doing is messing around with my "alien's greatest hits" playlist at the bottom of this here blog. You may notice it's been changed and extended slightly - in fact I've been adding a track every day, near enough. Not always from the 1980s either :) What I should be doing is adding the latest track to the start of the list, but YouTube has a bit of a problem with me doing that for some reason, so I'll just stick them at the end and then re-order the list roughly every quarter-moon, so you don't have to page through dozens of tracks to get to the new stuff. (And there could well be dozens on that list eventually, knowing me!)

Someone said something to me a few days ago regarding the music of the 1980s which made me stop and think. "I find it difficult to listen to these songs" they said, "because they remind me of my childhood when everything was happy and anything seemed possible. Now I'm grown up and so many things seem impossible now, and I know I can't ever go back there again." I told them that they should be thinking differently - not crying because something was over, but smiling because something had happened, to quote one of my favourite Twitternauts. But you know, maybe they have a point.

Today while walking down the street I heard a loud happy scream as a car pulled over, containing three young women. They were picking up a fourth gal who was waiting by the side of the road. They all drove off, no doubt to have lots of fun over the Easter weekend. As they drove away, I got a feeling not unlike the person mentioned in the last paragraph. I've not been involved in that sort of thing for quite a while. But then I've always been solitary in nature I suppose. I care little for going out clubbing it amongst the people who usually populate the places around here anyway - dripping in fake bling and not knowing how to handle their drink properly. It seemed different in my early 20s. The music was a darn sight better for a start :) But then, I'm not the target market anymore, am I?

And I've found myself looking at old Top Of The Pops programmes and movies from the 1960s and thinking "it seemed even better then". Even though I know that's all make-believe and real life was only like that for the lucky few - and if I was around then I'd probably have been working in some dreary factory and coming home to my parents house arguing about Mary Whitehouse and Harold Wilson - it still seems better than the reality of my life at the moment.

Then again, isn't that what TV and films are for? To escape? And don't most of us, as the famous quote goes, "live a life of quiet desperation?"

Zog, this is depressing me. Time to wind this entry up I think before I lose focus completely. There's a packet of brandy flavoured coffee in the kitchenette. I'm gonna open it and watch some more old clips I think :)