The whole family went pottery painting today. My wife and I chose to paint plates. She did a lovely display of high heels on a side plate and I did the Batman symbol (what else!?). I decided that when we do this again that I would do more in a series, maybe the entire Justice Leagues (my era, not whatever they have at the time).
It’s been a while since I posted a proper blog entry but for those of you who are reading this and are not already aware, I was made redundant from my post at Credit Suisse the day before my brothers wedding in December (gosh, I feel I can finally mention where I have been for the past 11 years. How refreshing!) and the gardening period finished on March 9th which meant I was now no longer being paid whilst I continued to apply for every job I was remotely qualified for. So, today I did something that I haven’t done since the summer I failed my A levels in 1992 – I signed on.
It was without a doubt the most soul destroying experience I have ever had. It never felt like this the first time around, but then again I wasn’t supporting a wife and 3 kids in 1992. I felt every single piece of motivational spirit being sucked out of me by Doug, my employment advisor, as he explained that I should have come in sooner and my chances of getting a back dated claim were minimal (Well, I haven’t seen one approved in 20 years….
and that I had to come in every two weeks armed with details of every job I have looked at and applied for to get my money and, more importantly, get my mortgage insurance paying out.
Doug is a middle aged man with very large HotFuzz style aviator glasses as his normal spectacles; bouffant grey hair complete with side parting; a charcoal grey suit coupled with a black shirt which someone has obviously told him would be slimming (it isn’t) all topped off with the annoying habit of saying Yep
every single time I open my mouth to speak without giving a crap what I am actually trying to say. This is called Waiting to Speak
and is the antithesis of Listening
and very frustrating for a guy who is trying to get actual information as to how he can get out of the deep hole he has found himself in. It took all my strength not to shout in his face that I wasn’t some Channel 4 documentary benefit scrounger and that I didn’t want to be there anymore than he did, but I just sat there and took it because what else could I do? Do I really blame him? I guess not. After all, would I be any less jaded if I had been doing the job as long as him and dealing with the people that he has to – good, bad and indifferent?
So I stood up at the end of the interview and walked past the hoodies waiting to get their money – money I’d been providing not long beforehand – and walked outside. I had a list of errands I wanted to run in town but my brain wouldn’t work. I couldn’t think what I needed to do and Jo was too busy with the kids to pick me up so I went into autopilot and walked the 20 minutes or so home in a funk, trying to find a positive thought somewhere in my head.
I’m fine now, of course, and I gather that many feel like this but why? Why do we feel so awful? Surely there is a better way? I certainly want a job even more than I did before as I want to spend as little time as possible in that place.
Every cloud, eh?
I received an e-mail from Kev today asking if I had set-up an online pharmacy.
Yes. Had me confused for a moment there too.
Turns out someone has purchased a domain called ginger-ninja.net
which is obviously almost identical to my own domain gingerninja.net
. Not only that, but this individual is also using the site to sell medical items of a somewhat dubious nature. I’ll give you a taster:
Buy Cheap Viagra, Discount Viagra, Kamagra jelly, Kamagra, Apcalis and many more erectile dysfunction treatment solutions by Ginger Ninja!
Does that really sound like something I would do?
You’d think that after 21 years as my best mate, Kev would have known better than to ask. But, I said to myself, maybe Kev had only my best interests at heart? Afterall, a hacker can still get in and takeover a website if the admin has been rather silly with their security procedures. Maybe Kev was simply ensuring that it wasn’t my site and to ensure that I didn’t have a major problem. It doesn’t hurt to ask afterall and he’d me doing me a favour if that is the case.
And then it hit me. There is also always the possibility that Kev was looking for some assistance with his upcoming wedding and was hoping I could supply him with something to keep his ….morale… up on his wedding night? I’m not sure but I really do wonder if supplying little blue pills is above and beyond the call of duty for a Best Man.
No, not me. Had one of those commute’s this morning where everything worked against me. Not only did I oversleep due to not feeling well (I’ve caught Jo’s cold) but when I got to the station I couldn’t catch the train I wanted as it was running late and I would miss my connection. So I ended up waiting on the platform for an extra fifteen minutes for the direct service and faced the thick end of being nearly an hour late for work.
When I arrived at Stratford, it had become even hotter outside which is great if you are spending the afternoon in the garden but not if you have to wait on the platform for the DLR for another seven minutes. All was well and good at this point as I continued to watch Clerks on my Video iPod, which I had ripped from my DVD copy last night, until we reached a station around All Saints where we just sat there. Apparently the train in front had broken down and we were going to be stuck there for some time.
At this point we get to the subject of this little blog entry. A mouth-breathing young man with a shaved head dressed in a trackie top, jeans and sandals got on and sat next to me. This wasn’t a problem except he reeked of weed and I don’t mean a little. He could have felled cattle with his stench. It certainly made me retch when he first sat down. He’d clearly been enjoying his morning with Mary Jane as he started grinning around the carriage like a buffoon, giggling at the adverts on the walls. Again, more amusing than anything, as I continued to watch Clerks (which he noticed as he peered over my shoulder).
Then he coughed.
Without covering his mouth.
A small wad of phlegm flew out of his mouth and landed on my hand.
I duly pulled a face that looked like I had sucked the world’s largest lemon and glared at him as I looked for somewhere to wipe it off. He just looked at me without apologising, mouth open and eyes vacant.
That was enough for me at this point and I duly got up and moved to the doors to get some fresh air and remove myself from the target zone of his projectile coughing. He then proceeded to yell at the Passenger Agent to get a move on
despite the announcement that the train in front had broken down and we would be another ten minues or so, before checking that his lump of weed resin was still in his pocket and returning to his grinning and giggling.
I ignored him and returned to Clerks from the safety of the door well, but not before surreptitiously taking his photo……
I’ve had a couple of messages over the past week from old friends from my Haven & Pontin’s days where I’ve been referred to as Johno. The following keeps popping up in my head…….
Me: Johno? Johno… Now, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time… A long time.
Junior: I think my uncle knows him. He said he was dead.
Me: Oh, he’s not dead… Not yet anyway.
Junior: You know him?
Me: Of course I know him….He’s me!
*pauses*
Me: I haven’t gone by the name of Johno since before you were born.
*looks away reflecting on the past…at Camber and Littlesea*
Me: I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn’t allow it. He feared you might follow old Johno on some damn fool idealistic summer season show like your father did. It’s your father’s jacket. This is the weapon of a BlueCoat. Not as clumsy or as random as a Red Coat, but an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. For over a thousand generations, the BlueCoats were the guardians of fun and laughter in the Old Holiday Camps. Before the dark times. Before Ibiza.
But I am an old man and my powers are weak….
