They pave paradise and put up a parking lot ...

I truly believe that you can see through someone in the first thirty seconds or so of meeting them

It's easy enough to pick out the sleazeballs,the shitbags and the outright liars ... so too the eejits and the incompetents of this world

Much to my chagrin i've only just now, six months down the line, figured out that FluffyTheBoss is an admin twonk :'(((

Don't get me wrong here, admin twonks are fine in their place : city hall, working in the public transport system, the post office or even the benefit office ...

As far as i'm concerned though, the private sector is all about keeping it legal, improvising, flying by the skin of your arse, taking a few risks ... whatever

The thing that doesn't turn me on...is just soooo much not my 'bag', my kiff, or however i could describe it, is not having to fill out endless new bits of paperwork at every left hand signal, right turn and roundabout ...

I'm all for measuring somethings, but somethings are not all things

To resume: FluffyTheBoss is as much of an anal control freak as BoyIdiot, MargetheAccountsWomanFromHell is in her element and yours truly ...

Well, yours truly has started looking fo a new job - anything to get away from people who've reached the upper echelons of their threshold of Toytown incompetance

Babybird - You´re Gorgeous

You say the magic's gone, well i'm not a magician ...

My palate may not be refined enough to distinguish if the chef has added a pinch too much pepper to his sauce,
My eyes aren't keen enough to see that the artist has painted a stroke too many
My judgement isn't good enough to discern the yard too far that the sportsman has run

But i know that once the spark has gone, i need to find an electrician

When we're young, a Dear John letter will do the trick to get us out of a tight spot (i guess an sms does the trick just as inhumanely)

As we get older and more guillelessly gutless, we might set ourselves up to get caught in an act of flag del

At any age, we can always bite the bullet, front up and say: sorry babe, i'm offski...

Relationships are always about allowing ourselves to take that big jump into the unknown, about taking a seat on that juicy roller coaster of excitement called 'Getting Involved' .. all in anticipation of everything that could and possibly be

We all start to make plans, n'est ce pas ?

Past experiences shore us up and keep us aware of the tell-tale signs of things going adrift

Like a talisman keeping the bad juju at bay

They guide us through the choppy waters and help us to face up to the hard stuff

That dream we all harbour of growing old next to someone is one thing

The very real possibility of growing apart, splitting up and being jestisonned like a pair of old socks is all part and parcel of the deal that we all subscribe to

A deal to which no-one is immune, even with the best will in the world

We might keep this and many other dark and wretched ideas tightly sealed and wrapped under pristine silken sashes, subconsciously buried in the back of our minds

And yet ... from time to time, in the privacy of our troubled and sleepless nights, we might silently un-wrap and daintily dust them down ... an intricate examination of our insecurities

A where-are-we-now reality check
A worse-case-scenario motivational tool
An emotional un-comfort blanket

But one day...

One day ...

The dam is breached
An emotional tsunami is unleashed

What do we do then

The seven year itch anyone ?

And what if ....

.... you apply the same analogy to your job

Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses

Hey, how about going out for a quick drink ?

What flashes through men's and women's minds when faced with the same proposition ...

A brief analysis

Under the duvet, no-one hears you whimper ...

For the last two weeks now, i've been throwing an unfeasable amount of pills and tinctures down my gullet hoping that i'd be able to numbly fumble my way through to the week-end

I've been un-characteristically sensible and have been on a healthy diet of soups and have even *shockhorror* taken to going to bed early with a hot water bottle tucked between my knees

All in all, it makes me feel as though i'm on some kind of a 'How to be an old fuddyduddy for novices" training course

There is, however, a reason for all of this insane reasonableness : i'm still in the middle of re-painting my soon-to-be-ex lair of ill repute and i have to keep it together enough to be able to visit appartments most evenings ...

I've probably seen more real estate in three months than Buddy King would see in a year - i'm turning into a dab hand at whittling out the dodgy wiring, the wobbly fixtures and fittings ...the non sound-proofed walls hold no secret for me !

I've developped such a keen eye for these things that maybe i should be considering a career move ....

On second thoughts, maybe not

Aaaand i still have a day job where my presence is sort of, a bit required

No fun and high jinx for me there then ....

Charlie Winston - Like a Hobo (acoustic)

A new lexicon for a new world


TESTICULATING - Waving your arms around and talking Bollocks.

BLAMESTORMING - Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS - The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

SALMON DAY - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die.

CUBE FARM - An office filled with cubicles.

PRAIRIE DOGGING - When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see that's going on. (This also applies to applause from a promotion because there may be cake.)

MOUSE POTATO - The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

SITCOMs - Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids or start a "home business".

STRESS PUPPY - A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

XEROX SUBSIDY - Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE - The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE - The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the "adminisphere" are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded "administrivia" needless paperwork and processes.

404 - Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.

OHNOSECOND - That minuscule fraction of time in which you realise that you've just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all')

WOOFies - Well Off Older Folk.

CROP DUSTING - Surreptitiously farting while passing through a CUBE FARM, then enjoying the sounds of dismay and disgust; leads to PRAIRIE DOGGING

To think that some presidents have shoes thrown at them, whilst others have shops named after them ;@)

If the guy handling the sale of my flat is representative of the whole species, i can only deduce that estate agents are a bunch of fucking arseholes and that the world would be better off without the fuckers

I've just got home tonight to find the windows that i leave open to allow a bit of fresh air in, have all been systematically, tightly closed

The door to the bathroom has been left open - gee, i dunno, perhaps it's just me, but the last thing i fancy having when i walk into someone's home is a ringside view of their crapper ...

To cap things off, there are fucking big, bloodyfuckingfilthymuddy fucking footprints all over the fucking place - even up the fucking stairs that've just been completely fucking re-done

What a complete fucking wanker of an utterly fucking useless fucking tosspot of a fucking dickhead the guy is

I think that i can safely say that to judge from the 'fuck'/sentence ratio, i must be pretty much over my near-death-by-flu experience

Over the bridge of sighs ...

Inevitably, after the all out stresshanigans of last week's 'holiday', i came down with a real humdinger of a cold on saturday

I've always shied away from doctors, dentists (nurses are fine though) and other people who get paid for inflicting unecessary pain on unwell people

One particular scripture has always seen me through difficult times - the one that starts "No pills down thy gullet shall pass..." (Damiel 13:13)

As a general rule, whenever i'm a bit ill, i try to butch things out - a few whiskys and an early night'll make me all right has always been my favorite dicton

These last two days though, i've been getting by on chicken soup and 'strategic lie-downs'

Nevertheless, i woke up this morning with a very groggy head, a sore throat and a wheezy chest

I could've done with an extra day in bed but, y'know how it is, if you've just had a week off and no matter how much you hate your job, it's still a bit of a no-no to call in sick on the first day back

So, as highly unusual as it is, i went in today fully armed, not with a hip flask of moonshine, but with my pockets brimming over with disposable snot rags, bronchodilaters and .... over-the-counter flu pills ...

... over-the-counter flu pills that, to judge by their effect, should only be taken in quarter doses by normal people, or failing that, prescribed to people who're used to taking mandies and dexies or at the very least, horse tranquilizers

There should also be a warning along the lines of "If you really do intend to take this stuff, and cannot get by otherwise, please, please, please, be advised to do so lying down in a darkened room in the privacy of your own home. Do not, under any circomstances, ingest this product whilst at work - people are liable to mistake you for a gibbering, glassy eyed drug fiend and you may find yourself doing or saying things that could be held against you during your end of year assesment"

The moral of the story is
Do not do over the counter flu pills
Just say no kids, don't go there
Go for the homeopathic option
Stay with the whisky, lemon and honey stuff