T'is the season to get smashed

It's the start of the Xmas piss-up-come-holiday period and things might be worth blogging about here...dunno...we'll see. It ain't easy trying to juggle my new life AND my old one. Basically the old one involved going out and getting hammered whenever I fancied...well...when the missus would let me, but we came to a sort of understanding over this...The she slapped a once-a-week thing on me, fair do's, until she started her new evening job, which meant no fucker wanted to go out with me on a Monday or a Tuesday, and who could blame them. The up-shot being I seem to be going out, I dunno....once a month now....if that! Now add North bloody Finchley and driving into the pot and you'll see my social life is in ruins!! ruins I tells ya!...

So, the job's going OK-ish, lot's to learn, gotta try and be nice to people, make an impression and not upset anyone...2-3 weeks in and so far so good. The drive is ok, cold mornings, ice on the window screen stuff but otherwise OK, beats the train although I do miss reading/sleeping on my way to and from work.

So, Ok, tomorrow seeing Dave and his Brother in Cheers pub in Regent street. 4:00pm....all welcome, might be the last time I see Dave before the new year and I'm missing some school bazaar or summat at home, so bonus!

This time...it really is goodbye...until I blog again

As Predicted, I really am busy here. I get in around 7am, beating most of the traffic, and try to leave around 4ish, which doesn't beat any...Last Friday was good, the day before I was feeling rotten, some sorta bug going round rooted me to the toilet most of the day, but by Friday I was fine. Moved up to the new office, took 2 hours by train, plane, bus, bike etc. We left here 5:30 and headed into the City for our great piss-up. A good turn out, the usual lot plus a few fair weathered pals. On train home, some KFC munching slime arsehole, plonked himself next to me, eyeing up any talent on the train, sure enough he spots a lone women sitting on the seats on the other aisle, Bingo! he's over there like a flash, taking his food like, and spends the whole journey trying, successfully as it turned out, to seduce her...mebe he offered her one of his wings, I dunno...Relieved I was, but also on the alert for her shenanigans, me Knight in shinning like, but luckily, for him, she was docile and allowed this moron to paw her and kiss her all the way home. nice when that happens.
Saturday, went for lunch, why I don't know, as it cost me £30 I don't have and the smashers were playing right up!...ended up going home and "doing" a bottle of red while watching Voyager....Sunday, went to see Father Xmas at Van Hague's, the Smashers loved it, but he smelt more strongly of alcohol than I did, and that's not good.

I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, horse wagglers, horse thieves, bullbags, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!

I don’t know whether it’s because today’s my last commute day into the office or if my train journey is actually becoming more of a pain. I am hypersensitive to every little thing because I know these few days are to be my last or what?

Yesterday right, you know how some people sit down next to you on a train as if their legs had suddenly been chopped away from them and they fall back like a sack of shit? Well, yesterday this git did just that and, I’d say 90% of him hit the seat and 10% buffeted me. He then, all elbows and hands, digs around for his PDA then his phone, calls four people, that’s 4 people, leave messages for three of them,
“hey, it’s me, yeah, I’m on the train, calling to see how thingie went…anyway…er…call me back”
Luckily none of them replied. At Ware I get up and it’s BOOM! His bag is on me vacant seat, then BOOM! His legs are all over the seats opposite. Wanker!

And this morning right, his guy, feet up, I say, standing over them, “Can you move your feet please” and he’s all, sigh, dragging his feet off the seat, and I’m like, brushing his shit from his shoes from my seat. I mean, jeeeezus, what is it with people, I’m really confused, do they want a fight first thing in the morning, do they want verbal last thing at night, or do they just want to get to and come home from work with as little stress as possible?!!…

I WILL NOT miss these journeys I tell ya. So, yep, last day in City offices, crates are all here for packing everything up. Tomorrow we all go straight there and set up. Dunno when I’ll have a chance to Blog again.

Road to hell

I went to new work yesterday, spent almost the whole day there. I left the house at 9:00am and hit heavy traffic almost immediately outside Ware; one and a half hours later though, I’m in Finchley looking for somewhere to park. The Office I’ll be in is small and I have the crapiest desk, back facing the door, screen facing whoever comes into the room. Nice. There’s free toast and cereal in the kitchen as well as tea and coffee. I had a wander at lunchtime around the town, bit dull I suppose but no matter. By five I’d had enough and left to face the traffic home. My god, it’s dark and scary out on the roads I tell ya, especially the M25…Sheeeesh!…s’pose I’ll get used to it though. I was rushing home because the missus had some overtime she wanted to do, so it was, quite lidderally mate, hello/goodbye when I got in and the smashers were in a troublesome mood, the pair of them….took ages to get them to bed and settled. There you have it. In a nutshell. My yesterday, and all my tomorrows.

For whom the Bells toll

God, it feels weird, this'll be my last Monday working in the City, Church bells tolled ominously as I made my way up Moorgate this morning..

Not a bad weekend but for some reason felt completely knackered all the time, as did the missus. Apart from buying the car Saturday morning and taking it on a dry-run test drive to work yesterday, we did nothing at all. I was saying this to the missus last night; I was saying how we needed a break, a week......and just as I said....a week on a tropical beach, she said....a week in a remote cottage!....I mean, there you have it I think, the vast difference between the pair of us, It couldn't be any more graphic than that, two ends of the scale...Oh...how we laughed at this....laughed and laughed....until the laughter become sort of hollow...and then the silence descended and we looked about....and I was just about to say......Look, I think we need to talk about our marriage....when one of the smashers stared crying and the moment was lost....

Cold sweat...

Well, it's been almost a week in my new role and I have to say, not much has changed. I'm busier but otherwise, I'm doing the same work, with the same people, still here in the City, until next Friday when we all get moved up to Finchley, so it's a little wierd...like a phoney take-over almost...

Some Share Option money has already gone into my bank account, about £2,200, which is nice, but I'm using £1,000 of it to pay off some debt and the other half to put on as a deposit for the car I'm buying. Another £500 goes into my account in another 2-3 weeks then another £3,000 next year, or rather over the next 18 months. Don't ask me why it's like this, tax reasons mebbe and the way the deal was put together. Can't complain really, money for nothing innit?

Tomorrow I go and pick up my one-year-old nissan Micra "Tempest"...Street cred it ain't, but it'll be reliable and cheap to run I hope and dat's the main thing. From Monday week, the only thing I'll have to do every morning will be to point the car south and hope I don't kill myself...or others, as I'm not a great driver.

Fuck it

I'm so glad we had this chance to dialogue

I started Apoptygma, with the tag line “A Company in Peril” at the beginning of the year to chronicle the decline and demise of the company I was working for. It happened quicker than I imagined and no sooner had I started than we were in liquidation. Doh!

When the company phoenixed 2 weeks later and I came back, the blog seemed a good way of keeping the scattered members of the old company informed on what was happening here. I realised early on though, that that wasn’t a very good idea, as the plan was to outwardly show renewed confidence to the market while secretly finding ourselves a buyer, so the blog stayed off work related junk and switched to a personal one.

Now we have found that buyer, soon we’ll all be located in North London, busy migrating our software, databases and oursleves into a new company structure and I think now would be a good time to wind up Apoptygma.

I think people start and maintain blogs for a dozen reasons, fear of change (mine) a way to let off steam, to shout at the world, a diary (mine also), a tool to help develop their creative side, whatever. I’m not one of those people that say stop doing something when it’s not fun anymore, life teaches you otherwise right? We all do things that aren’t fun, shopping, working, going to the dentist etc because we have to, but a blog is one of those things I can stop, because, basically, it isn’t fun any more, or it’s less fun than it was, at any rate.

Besides, I’ve noticed a distinct reduction in email and MSN’s since the blog started, as people who know me don’t need to mail me how my weekend was anymore, or what I’ve been up to lately as they can read all about it on Apoptygma, so hopefully, that’ll change…

You never know, I might be back, looking back over these months, the camping holiday, that bloody boat trip in Norfolk, my eye operation, it’s all recored and I’m glad I did that, so who knows….Next time though, I think it’ll be a more private one, no stats, no blogroll, no GuestMaps….no pressures.

Auto-destruct sequence activated

Spearmint Rhino

The thing about Spearmint Rhino is...Oh god....Look, a cab to Ware from the West End is rather like...Oh...Christ....

At the Coal Face

So, last night right, I’m supping on a nice glass of red wine, watching Final Destination on Channel 4, when the missus jumps on me, all frisky like. Never one to turn down some impromptu sex, I set to work on her. Ten minutes later and we’d moved onto the floor and I’m working up a right old sweat, knees trembling, muscles aching, concentration etched all over me moosh and we’re still on the foreplay!…Then I hear it, something, dunno what, and stop..
Me: What’s that noise?
Missus: Nothing, keep going…
So, I’m off again, but minutes later I hear it again…
Me: Did you hear that again?
Missus: Look, it’s nothing, just my fanny farts..
I pause. Blink. Shrug. And carry on.

Then we both hear it, someone’s knocking at the door, it’s 10:30 at night and someone’s come a-calling…must be some sorta emergency or a late trick-or-treater. The missus gets up, a little wobbly, and hurries on some clothes to answer the door…
Oh, sorry, but yir car lights are on and I didn’t want to use the door bell (instead I’d fucking tap at your door and scrape at your window like some wanking moron!)…Minutes later, pot-off-boil, we start again, well, always finish what you start’s my motto…but our hearts weren’t in it anymore and we just went through the motions, until she had her final third orgasm….you know?