Job

I handed in my notice today, so after 9 and a half years I will be leaving my job to do something I actually properly want to do.

Well. After the 24th August, which will be my last day.

Then there's a week of faffing.

Then my 32nd birthday.

The day after that it's heading to Spain for a month going to a retreat and writing.

Am looking forward to that.

Really quite a lot.

3:44 PM - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

giant penguin anyone?

My housemate Rob is a fan of penguins.

A big fan.

Recently he bought a penguin on eBay.

A big penguin.

It arrived on Sunday night.

Photographs of the arrival:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianftang/sets/72157600133021976/

4:31 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Cake or Death?

or A Slightly Scuzzy Story Of How Last Week Cake Saved My Life.

I woke up on Friday morning with very low blood sugar, so low in fact that despite being completely aware of where I was and the fact that my sugar levels were very low I couldn't actually move my body properly. I could barely lift my arms, and had no real control over where they might flop about when I did manage to lift them.

Like an idiot I didn't have any Lucozade tablets next to my bed like normal. There was no other sugar in my room at all. My only option was to try and get to the kitchen. So, I kind of fell out of bed, giving myself a carpet burn on my knee, and crept my way along the floor trying to get to the door. I was making frankly rubbish progress, when I remembered "Exhibit C".

My friends Anelia and David got married last year and their wedding invitation was brilliantly produced to look like it was a surveillance dossier for a Private Investigation agency. In keeping with the theme at the end of the night on the actual day we were given a piece of cake in a box that had "Exhibit C" stamped on the outside. Being the very organised person that I am this box was still sat on the dresser by the door. Still containing the cake. It was a lovely chocolate cake. Or rather it had been last year when the wedding took place. Now it was more of a stale biscuit. But it still had sugar in it and was the only thing anywhere nearby that was actually going to get my body working vaguely properly.

I managed to pull myself up and to get the box down and put the whole piece of now biscuit-like cake into my mouth and let it suck all the moisture out of my body. Months old cake. After a moment of slow chewing. I could feel some of the sugar doing me some good so I made an early attempt at standing up. My legs were still operating like baby Bambi's and rather than actually standing me upright let me career headfirst into my CDs. Which hurt.

Eventually I managed to get downstairs and sat on the sofa with a spoon and the remains of a jar of honey, filling my face rather like Winnie the Pooh.

I'm used to all this really and I don't mean this to be a selfserving story of "oh my poor life" because I should really have had some form of sugar by my bed so it was a situation, however accidentally, of my own making. I did remain a bit spun out for a while though as I reflected positively on the fact that if it weren't for old cake that I didn't eat at the time of the wedding because I was diabetic the start of the day could have been a lot worse.

12:56 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Doctor Who

Marvellous. Marvellous. Marvellous. Best season opener so far. I am an excited five year old at home giggling and being excited.

"Ah, look at that, a little shop."

Words cannot describe how happy that unexpected little line made me.

There's not much telly that makes me feel proud just by watching it. I have nothing to do with the programme. Nothing. But my enjoyment of the "re-invention" is famous, and so I want everyone else to love it too. And the first episode of series three to my mind has pulled it off.

Call me a geek. Call me a sad sack. But this was the programme that scared the shit out of me in 1979 and is infact still scaring the five year old daughter of my best friend. There's not much telly that has that longevity.

It's just better now.

Are you a fan? And if not..... why the fuck not?

11:57 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Rubbery lift

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes I realise what a bizarre industry it is I work in.

In my building at the moment, in the main lift used by all the staff in the building, there is a rubber mat on the floor.

This is to protect the carpet from the goat which also uses the lift.

The goat is appearing in one of the plays we have on at the moment.

I don't know the goat's name.

10:18 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Five whole pounds to spend

"How much to West Ealing?"

"What?"

"How much to West Ealing?"

I leaned at the window. The cab driver looked concerned at my drunkenness, like I might keel over and not notice if the cab were to be suddenly magicked out of existence.

"How much?"

I rooted around in my pockets and with the pride of a small child showing off their most recent painting and waiting expectantly for it to be affixed to the fridge, presented all the shiny coins contained within.

"I have five whole pounds to spend."

As the words left my mouth a sober thought passed through my brain; a bus may be here any moment. Only a few minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen maybe. Twenty at most. Wrestling control from the sober thought the drunken parts of the brain collectively demanded to be home NOW. It was raining for godsake, gone midnight, and there were beans on toast to be eaten. I could see the tin in the cupboard. The singular tin of baked beans waiting to be consumed. My stomach grumbled with hunger.

"Fine."

The cab journey seemed only seconds long but still the meter clocked up to £6.20. I prepared myself for an argument.

"I've only got five pounds to spend."

"Yeah that's fine."

               "Are you sure?"

               "Yeah, fine, have a good night."

               I strolled to my front door happy in the knowledge that the world was populated by nice people and that there were beans on toast to be eaten. A big drunken smile plastered on my face I opened the front door, walked straight to the kitchen and put two slices of bread into the toaster. There were beans on toast to be eaten. I went to the cupboard and took out the tin from exactly the position it had been in my mind's eye for most of the journey. Beans on toast.

               I looked at the tin.

               They were kidney beans.

               "Bollocks," I said.

8:12 AM - 5 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Stupidest journey ever

I'd just like to take a moment to mention the wonder that is the Heathrow Connect train service, which runs between Heathrow Airport and Paddington Station. It appears to be run by people who couldn't organise a pea soup in a soup factory.

Unlike the speedy (and expensive) Heathrow Express, which runs from Heathrow to Paddington without stopping, the Heathrow Connect train is a commuter service which stops along the way at Hayes and Harlington, Southall, Hanwell, West Ealing (where I get on),  and Ealing Broadway before dawdling it's gormless way along the track to Paddington. It is very rarely on time, and very rarely takes the length of time it should to get to it's destination. It should be about a twelve minute journey. It's an overground "national rail" service, so is supposed to have a proper timetable.

Inside the train there are continual pre-recorded announcements apparently made by the man with the worlds least charismatic voice welcoming you to the service and explaining that if you don't have a valid ticket you'll be summarily executed by one of the charming on board staff. (Actually they are all perfectly charming). These recorded announcements are obviously repeated endless to test the sanity of the passengers, but at the same time are never listened to by anyone actually working on the train (which is a fairly neat trick - to be able to screen the recordings out must take some impressive kind of  resolve) because normally as the train approaches Paddington the recordings change to welcome you to the service going in the other direction on the return journey. Before you reach the platform for you to disembark.

Anyway, this morning I had my iPod on full blast (James Dean Bradfield's excellent album The Great Western - ironically titled given the circumstances - the Great Western being the train line that leads from Wales through Bristol into London via Paddington station) in an effort to screen out all these prerecorded announcements of electronic sincerity - "Please accept our apologies for the delay to your service" - and to concentrate on reading my book. The time line of the journey looked something like this.

9.12 am   Train arrives on time at West Ealing for one of the first times in ages. Pulls away and heads to Ealing Broadway.
9.15 ish   Train arrives at Ealing Broadway and other passengers get on and off.
9.20 ish   Bloody hell we're approaching Paddington station and it looks like the service will actually be running fully on time for the first time in ages too.
9.25 ish   Obviously, celebrating too soon, the train stops outside Paddington on the tracks next to Royal Oak tube station. To give you an idea of how close to Paddington station this is, if you are stood on the Hammersmith and City Line platform at Paddington, you can see the tube trains pulling in and out of Royal Oak station. It'd be a couple of minutes walk. Not far at all. But instead of trundling in the Heathrow Connect train sits tantilisingly close to Paddington station for about five minutes before the pre-recorded charisma free voice starts to apologise for the delay.
9.30 ish   Still sat outside the station. No movement
9.35 ish   Still no movement. All around us on other tracks leading into the station other trains are trundling their merry ways into their respective platforms. Trains from the Westcountry, trains from Reading, and sickeningly, trains from Heathrow on the Heathrow Express route pass by taunting us with their lack of tardiness.
9.38 ish   The real voice of the driver comes on and apologises for the delay. People in the train feel more inclined to accept his apology, being as he's a real person and everything. But are still tutting and not looking happy, but being polite and not making a fuss.
9.40 ish   Nothing. No movement.
9.45 ish   The driver comes back on the speakers and announces the fact that there has been a points failure at Paddington and we can't go any further. And in fact because we can't go any further the train is going to have to go back to Ealing Broadway.
Now at some point the driver must've walked unseen through the train to the other end, because exactly this happens.
An entire train full of people simultaneously gets out their mobile phones and calls into work to explain that they will be late. There is no rioting, but people are exasperated but kind of amused at the same time.
9.50 ish   We get back to Ealing Broadway

I give up and get on the Central Line on the Underground and finally get into work at 10.45, three quarters of an hour late, having spent an hour and forty five minutes travelling.

So today the Heathrow Connect service wins my special "Couldn't do fucking worse if they tried" award. I commend them on their absolute uselessness as it really must take some kind of special stupid to fuck things up as badly as they do.

Congratulations.

5:18 PM - 3 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

some morning word definitions...

DESKFAST - 

morning meal eaten at your desk.

LIFTFAST –

morning meal eaten in the lift on the way to your desk from the canteen to stop it getting cold.

CARBFAST –

a morning meal of chocolate and a bottle of coke.

CAFFETINE –

a strong cup of coffee and a cigarette.

3:15 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Bank Manager

On Saturday I had a meeting with my bank manager. Or account manager. Or latest person to be assigned my account. Or person trying to sell me a new type of account that I don't really need. Whatever their title is I didn't really ask. I'd been putting the meeting off for quite a while, because on the whole when my wages went into my account they paid off my overdraft with a little bit extra and as such I know I'm not a bad risk customer. What I did guess was that the meeting would be trying to sell me something.

Lo and behold I was offered a premium plus account, that costs £25 a month and offers all sorts of benefits I wouldn't use. Travel insurance is useless to me as I'm a diabetic and have high blood pressure so no standard insurers will cover me. I already have mobile phone insurance. I don't drive so free membership of the AA is poinless. The extra benefit of lower charges on my overdraft would be completely pointless because actually the charges on my overdraft are lower than £25 a month. So I turned that down. I knew that I would, and felt quite satisfied that my own basic mathematics bore out my general feeling that anything I would be offered would be pointless.

Then I was offered a loan to pay off the amount that I normally go into overdraft by. The loan charges were more than I am paying at the moment so I turned that down too. My account manager/supervisor/whatever offered to lower the interest rate if I were to borrow more. "Is there anything you would like more money for? Are you looking to buy a car?" "No," I said, "As I said, I don't drive."

Right.

So far this had taken twenty minutes of my Saturday afternoon, and I really wanted to get out.

She went through a few personal details. "Where do you work? How long have you worked there? Nearly nine years? Really, and do you work part time?"

I looked at the statement with the figure she had circled which was my monthly pay.

It took me a couple of seconds to realise what she was implying.

"No, I work in the theatre. The pay is pitiful," I said. Whereas what I wanted to say was "You cheeky cow."

In the end I took the credit card I was finally offered because the balance transfer was at 0% for six months and blah-di-blah-di-blah. And tried to get out before the fact I said "I can't afford to pay into a pension" led me into any other exciting avenues to borrow money.

But all I could think of for the rest of the day, with amused indignation was that my bank manager thought I only worked part time because my monthly pay was so embarrassingly low.

Working in the theatre industry is great. Really it is. I can't really think of any other industries I'd rather work in. Still. It's my turn to win the lottery next week, so that's okay.

3:59 PM - 7 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Beans on toast.

I've just had beans on toast for breakfast and it occurs to me that it is one of the only meals I can think of that is acceptable (maybe just in the UK) to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In fact I can't think of any others. Sandwiches can do for lunch and dinner at a push, but they aren't a breakfast food. Are they?

I would be delighted to hear your thoughts

2:57 AM - 7 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment