May 21st - May 27th 2007
Sunday BigMouth
Saturday Persimmon
Friday Pretty dumb
Thursday Mushroom
Wednesday Broken
Tuesday Cabbage
Monday Marced
Sunday 27th May
I dunno if Freud ever said anything about it, but confessing to your failings in public isn't always such a good idea; sometimes you simply end up walking away with the idea that you're now free to do it all over again....
As with my recent animadversions of My Big Mouth. Following which, I found myself travelling up The Longest Escalator in The World, around 10pm, with a colleague I barely know, attempting to make small talk.
He seems an amiable enough chap, so I dare say there was nothing to which he would object in my initial conversational manoeuvre, wherein I pointed out that this was my favourite time of day, when most of the staff started going home.
Nor was there anything exceptional in my subsequent remark, to the effect that my department enjoyed the office emptying out, and leaving just us behind.
My parting chortle, however ("We all play naked leap-frog around midnight; come join us!") was, in retrospect, probably somewhat ill-advised.
Saturday 26th May
Persimmon, December 2006
Friday 25th May
Come to think of it, I have something of a habit of mildy unfortunate conversations with minicab drivers.
Such as the time a few months ago when I was indulging myself in a well-oiled rant about in-car navigation systems, and their especially annoying habit of insisting that all roads lead to Elephant and Castle.
"I mean, what is the bloody point," I screamed "when you have an intelligent, sober passenger in the back who does the damned journey several times a week? I think I can be trusted to have a better sense of local geography than some piffling software run up in a back room somewhere in South Korea!"
And found myself unable to resist muttering: "...prettier too."
Thursday 24th May
Mushroom, December 2006
Wednesday 23rd May
So, okay, I've complained long and loud about the fact that, to take a cigarette break in our new offices, I have to walk what seems like a good quarter of a mile through the open-plan arena, down the longest escalator in Europe and out onto the urban hell of the street.
But, I was thinking today, I'd really miss those cigarette breaks in the highly unlikely event of my ever giving up smoking.
Relatively restful is what they are, especially on those evenings when I'm not actively in charge of things - like last night.
It was quite late, so the small fleet of minicabs that service our department and others was already starting to appear in the forecourt.
One driver, whom I vaguely recall being especially jolly with on my long ride home sometime last week, got out of his executive saloon to stretch his legs, and did a pantomime raising of his eyebrows at seeing me posed langorously in a corner by the bins.
"I'm a streetwalker by trade!" I called out. "And a very good one too. How else do you think I can afford a can ride home at the end of the night?"
He didn't believe me, of course. At least I hope he didn't.
Tuesday 22nd May
Cabbage, Spring 2007
Monday 21st May
Much as I would like to be able to offer you some snaps from Marc Almond's recent Wilton's show, I cannot: took the camera, but left the battery pack in the recharger, doh.
Not much to say about the gig itself either, except to report that Marc has a distinct sparkle in his smile these days, thanks to all the reconstruction work on his jaw.
Some unexpected humour, too - not least thanks to the rather bizarre opening act, a large-boned transexual known as Baby Dee, all ginger ringlets and ethereal gesture. Talented but..something else altogether.
(David and I fell into unfortunate hysterics at a particular low point in her lyrics, which ran something like: "The rabbit came out of his hole, the rabbit ran round the tree. The rabbit...ran back down his hole". The concept of a "grassy cradle" also had us snorting.)
Marc was somewhat less hysterical - though the concept of making some inter-song patter out of remembering how crap he was on the previous two nights, to an audience that included quite a few people who'd paid over £30 to attend those nights, struck me as pretty laughable.
He also provided my favourite introduction to a song, ever: "This next song is based on a Russian poem about how soldiers look up when they see cranes flying overhead and believe they are the souls of soldiers going home. It's called 'Stork'...
......previous week
