Christmas

Her name is Christmas -- like the Bond girl in "The World is Not Enough" -- and juvenile as I am I can't wait for the opportunity to turn to her and make the same joke: "I thought Christmas only came once a year". I'd sleep with her just for the chance to say it.

Internet dating seems once more to have stalled -- there was a couple of false starts, one girl seemed keen when I complimented her on her smile, another liked that I wrote her a long and rambling second email. But neither came to anything. And yet one night I went the largely-pointless flirtomatic website I always see advertised on MySpace, and have heard people refer to. The website is pretty stupid, just horny guys looking for people to have cybersex with -- pulse optional, age negotiable. Just as I was about to write the site off as a bad idea, this girl caught my eye. I sent her a friendly -- as opposed to sleazy -- message and we talked for the rest of the night, switching to IM fairly quickly. We share a taste in music, but there's still plenty of room for me to recommend bands or songs to her. We'd been talking less than a week when I asked for her phone number, now days don't pass without a message or two back and forth. It's not quite calling each other, but there will be time for that later.

I made her a CD the other day -- I vaguely suggested it last week and she jumped at the chance -- and was wondering what to do about her address, she'd be wise not to trust me with it quite yet. The funny thing is, she lives in Shropshire -- a long way from here, but coincidentally the same county as where Fiona lived, back when we dated. It wasn't very close back then, either, when I lived in the Midlands. Funnier still, I know what town she lives in -- she made reference to it the other day, so bored I stuck her second name into a search of the phone book. There was a list of names. For no reason, I put Fiona's surname in -- and up comes her Dad's new address. It seems familiar. I go back to my original search and I notice that one of the people on the first list lives a mere 5 doors away from Fiona's Dad. And if I was a gambling man, I'd put money on it being her.

I don't know where it's going to lead. Right now we're just friends and I don't feel a stir of anything more than friendship for her, which is just as well. But I want to see where the friendship leads -- if people come into our lives for a reason, I'm eager to find out what significance we will have for the other.

And just to mess with my head, now San wants the two of us to to Paris for the weekend, for her birthday. Just her, and me.

Musical Monday (#8)

This song in many ways sums up punk. It might not be "Anarchy in the UK" or "God Save the Queen", or even a random discordant offering by some obscure and largely talentless band that Lester Bangs used to love, but just the same it feels like music wouldn't be the same without it.

As it stands, the song itself appears merely to be about unrequited teenage love -- a common enough theme for punk -- but apparently the lyrics were changed. The Undertones changed the originals words to "I wanna hold her tight -- get teenage kicks right through the night", just one word makes all the difference.

The song was about masturbating. It had originally gone "I wanna hold it tight" -- and if you listen to the rest of the song, it makes sense, the "teenage love, so hard to beat". It's not about tender, warm, romantic feelings but instead conducting one's self in a solo symphony. It is in good company, though, along with the Vapors' "Turning Japanese" and the Buzzcocks' slightly less subtly titled "Orgasm Addict".

Just the same, this song embodies so much -- it is frustrated and sad and filled with longing. Punk wasn't just about being pissed off about the state of the country, it was a musical rebellion against the over-elaborate prog rock -- by making stripped down, simple songs about masturbating.

The song is more than that, though -- Ferghal Sharkey has a unique and disarming voice, the music might be simple but it's not deliberately obnoxious and discordant. He does the political as well as he does the heartfelt, but it's this song that can't be rivalled.

You can, however, come close. I don't include today the Undertones original -- I doubt anyone here has never heard it -- I include instead the cover by Nouvelle Vague. I'm rarely a huge fan of cover versions, and Nouvelle Vague can seem the wrong side of novelty sometimes (remember Mike Flowers Pops?) -- but they take this song and make it their own. The longing increases, even if the original song is hard to beat.
No pun intended.

The week in review

Readers, forgive me, it's been nearly a week since my last update. It's frustrating, I need a kind of telepathic typewriter to update for me -- since I will think of things to write about, then either forget or miss the chance to update. Then before I know it a week has passed. Maybe I should write a bunch of updates all at once and then slowly leak them out over a course of a week.

So, the week in review, in reverse order: After silence from them nearly all week, the dating website opened the lines of communication with me yesterday. I had emailed them on Thursday for the second time, and it probably sounded quite snotty -- but so it should, they have £100 of my money, I wasn't happy about it and I had already emailed them last weekend. But I take back every bad thing I said about them, they have been incredibly cooperative. It was explained to me how I accidentally signed up for the year's premium package -- it's the default, if you don't select what one you do want, which is slightly cheeky to my mind. However, when my bank told me they couldn't get my money back what I wasn't expecting was the website to turn around and gladly offer to correct my membership and refund the difference. Even refunding $171, having deducted some for the 5 days use. Cross your fingers this story has a happy ending.

Yesterday was a half day at work, what was called an "away day" and meant to be a chance for everyone to mix and get to spend time together outside of work. Following an hour-long company meeting. That said, there can't be too many companies that provide free beer, wine or vodka jelly for meetings -- and then free pizzas afterwards. Because of wet weather apaprently the original plan of going to Hyde Park to play sport was abandoned in favour of going to the pub for a quiz. Since I work on the sports team, I didn't think it wise for me to say "I don't like sport", but needless to say I am still emotionally scarred from all the years of being picked last.

Side tangent, is it wrong or abnormal to still be bothered by incidents at school, like 15 years later? I don't so much hold grudges, but I have always had issues with "letting go" of my feelings. This can be that I have difficulty letting go of feelings I had for girls I once dated, or it can be that I am still angry at how I was treated by a teacher.

Back on topic; we went to the pub, for a free bar and a quiz. It seemed like forever before they actually started the quiz -- especially since we'd been told after the meeting to just go turn off our computers and go straight to the pub. The worst afternoon drinking a free bar is usually better than the best afternoon at work, so you can't complain too much. The fact is though that nobody actually mixes and talks to anyone other than the same people they always talk to. I stood up at one point and looked around me and realised I knew almost nobody. I'm still too shy to just walk up to people I don't know and start talking to them. Just the same, it was a good afternoon and I got home from work early which is always a bonus.

The rest of the week has been pretty uneventful -- I went to the movies with Sanyu on Thursday night, to see a beautiful French film, I met with a recruitment consultant on Tuesday -- he contacted me last week after seeing my CV posted on Monster. That's the website, Monster, not on a monster, although that would be unique. Unfortunately, when we met he told me that companies don't like to go through a recruitment consultant to recruit for junior roles, that it's a very quiet time of year without many jobs going, and that I'm better of staying where I am for as long as I can. Which makes you wonder why he contacted me in the first place. Work itself alternates between being something I can do quite happily, and something I absolutely hate. So long as it isn't something I hate all of the time, it's probably good enough for now.

And that's about it, Musical Monday had to be postponed earlier in the week -- but if I can get it written early it will be up as planned this Monday.

Worse than a drunk dial

Sometimes it amazes me that I am able to tie my shoelaces without help. The fact that San calls me a street urchin because my shoelaces are often undone, and trailing through puddles, might go some way to explain this morning's activities.

The Internet is a wonderful thing; it enables you to waste hours of your time without ever actually being awake or paying full attention. I was sat around watching pointless videos on youtube, while outside thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance and it continues to rain so hard that I'm thinking of building an ark. This all seems like a very fitting background.

You know how on these sites there are always the “meet people near you!” ads? The ones we all ignore? Put it down to not really being awake properly, or being distracted, but today I didn't ignore them. My attempts at Internet dating so far haven't been exactly full of promise, but the desire to meet new people is still there and short of going to bars and hanging around my own the Internet seems as good a way as any.

Last week I wasted hours of my life filling out an epic personality test on eHarmony -- only to find at the end of it you had to pay to use the service. It could have told me this to begin with, before I did compatibility tests and personality tests and took a quiz that seemed scarily familiar -- until I realised it's the same test mental health professionals have been giving me for years.

Today I went to this other site, and dutifully filled out who I am, who I am looking to meet, browsed the site a little, all the rest. Then I took a look at the account page. Cut to rumbles of thunder.

I have a "Gold" membership. For $180 a year. At no point when filling out my card details do I remember changing the "no thanks" to "yes please, feel free to charge me extortionate sums of money for a service I will get bored of in a couple of days".

I did what any sensible thinking individual would do in this same circumstance, sent them an email explaining I'm a retard and that they should close my account because I would be cancelling my cards. I tried calling them -- an international phone call on my mobile phone isn't going to be cheap, either -- but my service provider is one step ahead of me and has barred international calls.

True to my word, I called my bank and reported my card as "lost". Card now cancelled, new card reissued. Then I called my card protection service and passed on the same details to them. I don't think it will do me any good, however -- because I expect the transaction has already gone through, and in order to claim this money back it would have to be genuinely fraudulent. This requiring police reports and the rest, and I'm in no hurry to get myself investigated for fraud.

The new mobile phone from LG will have a built-in breathalyser, this means that the phone can automatically block you from calling predefined numbers if your blood/alcohol level is above a certain level -- and stop you drunk-dialling your ex. I need an equivalent for the Internet, something that detects how awake I am or how much attention I am paying before it lets me give out my card details.

Life, or what passes for it

A year ago, the bombings in London left me cold. Terrorism was not new to England, or to London, growing up the threat of the IRA was always there. Even today there is a noticeable lack of bins in central London, in the stations there is a wealth of junk food and no bins to dispose of it in. I'm surprised there's even post boxes.

But this was a different animal.

And then exactly two weeks later, another group of young men tried to do the same thing again. Where are they now? It hasn't occurred to me to think of it since that time, but now I do wonder what happened to those men after they were arrested. Are they in prison, in holding cells? Have they been shipped to some overseas detention centre? I'm not overly concerned for their welfare -- however callous it sounds -- I just dislike how these things disappear from the public eye.

Fast forward just over a year, and our secret services -- or whoever -- foil a major terror attack. Men are in custody, the press are full of dire warnings, and London is on the highest alert possible. The city seemed unnaturally quiet today, perhaps because this level of alert says an attack is imminent.

The trouble can be, though, when do we know who to believe? It was only a couple of months ago that there was a dramtic raid and men were arrested, one was shot, and it was said a chemical weapon attack on the UK had been avoided at the zero hour. Tabloid newspapers were full of warnings of an impending attack, an attack that didn't come. The men were released without charges, without any evidence of chemical weapons or criminal activity, and the police made awkward apologies for shooting one of them.

Then remember even before July 7, there was the time with the tanks at the airport. They wouldn't say why they were there, what they were achieving, we just had to believe we were being kept safe. Sometimes it feels like a lottery. We weren't kept safe on July 7, and two weeks later an attack only failed through luck.

Are these men guilty? Were they planning the largest scale terrorist atrocity we have ever seen? Should the government be allowed to detain without charge potential terror suspects for longer? Or will they soon be released without charges, as just as convenient smoke screen to distract people from other troublesome issues? I have no answers for this, only more questions.

I resent and bristle at the press statements about people who hate freedom or want to destroy our way of life. I doubt very much these people are consumed with rage about people having equal rights to vote. More likely they are displaced, angry and frustrated -- like so many of us can be, like so many of us are. They are easily influenced and easily led and they think Britain sending bombs to Israel or invading Iraq, Afghanistan, is the same thing as blowing up commercial airliners.

But it comes down to what can you do? The official lines are remain vigilant, go about your normal life. Life has to go on. But I wonder, when will it end? Will it ever end? With the IRA there were ceasefires, peace talks, negotiations -- but how do you sit down around a table with people who plan these things? If indeed these things are real at all.

Maybe this is just how life is going to be.

Musical Monday (#7)

So it's a day early: bite me. I wanted to something more positive and upbeat than Serial Killer Sunday.

Sometimes things in life can get overwhelming. I think my problem has always been that I get too hung up on details, and that I need to take more time out just to consider the little things, the things that make me happy.

Today I found an old, old diary that was about to be deleted over its host site, I hadn't been there in six months and forgot it had existed. It combined this song with this picture. Perhaps it's out of place the picture says "Tell me, where is this bright side you speak of" when the song seems to be about taking pleasure from small things.

I love the song, it's so different for Audioslave -- who go up in my estimations with almost everything they do -- it seems happy and simple and just about living life.

"I like colourful clothing in the sun, because it doesn't remind me of anything"

I once made everyone stop and mark the day when I said it was all going to change. When I realised I was the centre of the universe and everything was going to work out just fine. I think now that might actually just have been a manic episode more than anything else, but I want to try and set a milestone for myself. Mark a day on the calendar when I got things into perspective finally and turned my life around. In whatever way.

None of that matters, what does matter is this song is incredible, even if I probably don't understand it properly.

A bed beneath the stars that shine

Before anything else, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who left comments or emailed me to offer comfort, condolences, concern or advice. It means a lot to me that you would care about someone you've never met and -- more than likely -- will never meet.

I apologise for my lack of updates just recently, truth be told there hasn't been much to say. I don't want to speak to soon and jinx it, but I am feeling better this week. I could speculate about a variety of possible reasons why -- perhaps there's a change in air pressure, maybe work is treating me better this week, could be the cumulative effect of listening to my self hypnosis CD or maybe it's as simple as a subtle chemical change.


Thursday night on the train I managed to lose my favourite jacket and the hoody I'd been given at work and worn almost every day since. I put them both on the overhead rack, and was in such a hurry to get off the train when I got back -- since it was late -- that I left them there. Strangely, the various people I called in lost property were all incredibly friendly and helpful -- in contrast to the girl working in the lost property office in the station in London. Her English was limited and she seemed to have an attitude that asking after my lost items was ruining her day. I'm told it can takeas long as 10 days for lost items on the train to migrate into London, and I don't know who would want to keep my jacket.

A battered, beige corduroy jacket. The cuffs were slightly frayed, it was almost impossible to keep clean and was missing buttons. Doesn't exactly sound like the find of a lifetime. I liked it though, it was a sort of birthday present years ago from the Mambo store in Islington and is one of the very few items I have ever been able to afford there. I have since put up an "item wanted" listing on ebay for a replacement, and even emailed the Mambo european head office.

Friday evening I got home from work, sat on my bed and cried. I haven't cried in forever, and I don't even know what it was I was crying about on Friday. I was just at the very limit of my ability to cope, so it's perhaps fortunate it was Friday. I refused invitations to go out with my friends -- perhaps unwise, since it's when I most want to be left alone that I least should be -- and even over Saturday and Sunday there was no marked improvement. It was commented over dinner with family on Sunday that I would speak only to be sarcastic.

Then at some point Sunday night I decided that things were going to change. I was going to be more proactive, harder working and realise that a job is just a job. I don't know if it's the right career for me, but nobody says I have to stay in it if I don't want to. San says she has decided she is going to go teach English in Japan -- like Tom -- and I got to thinking maybe I could do something similar in central or South America. But it always raises the question: what then? I could quit this job, work in something with an actual wage and then disappear off, but it always comes back to the same point. Right now I am better off staying in what I am doing and where I am.

Just the same, for now I am OK, and I again thank everyone for their concern and well-wishes. I'm not yet out of the woods, but I don't think I necessarily will ever be. You just have to do the best you can.

It's not my place in the 9 to 5 world

I was telling San the other day of the age-old problem for me in my life; the eternal question of what am I doing to make the world a better place?

Apparently not everyone feels this same way -- it should come as no surprise, considering the state of various things such as war, greed and global poverty. Most people focus first and often solely on themselves, what are they doing to make their own life better? But somehow that's not good enough for me. I come back to, how does what I do matter? In journalism I found there were various excuses you could make about keeping people informed and entertained, even educated, but really it was about profit. They call PR the dark side not without reason, because here there is really no excuses about educating or informing, it is marketing. Essentially, you work in advertising. It might be a particularly clever form of advertising, it might go hand-in-hand with journalism, but I have no illusions about it helping anyone.

It was brought home to me the other day when everyone recieved a mass email inviting us up to the roof terrace for a glass of champagne, for some announcement or another. I headed up there with various other colleagues, there were various glasses and bottles of champagne and bottles of beer. I went back down to my desk to find my bottle opener, and I'm glad I did as when I got back down there the scenario struck me as absurd and I just went back to work.

An hour or less later, I was called upon to go back up to the kitchen on the top floor and prepare food for a client meeting. It wasn't for an account I work on, I just work for someone who is in charge of the account, which sort of makes me their bitch. I'd already gone out earlier in the day to buy all the food for the meeting, because there hadn't been enough time to get hospitality to provide it. So I went back upstairs to chop fruit and cut sandwiches into quarters and all the drinks from earlier were still out on their trolley. The account exec -- or account manager or director or whoever -- asked hospitality to remove it all, so as not to give the clients the wrong impression.

As I stood slicing fruit and trying to arrange it "nicely" on a plate, I watched half-full bottles of champagne emptied down the sink.

In some parts of the world, people are right now starving to death. In our own city there are people every day struggling to feed their own familes. We, however, can afford to pour bottles of champagne down the drain, if they have been opened. Any food left after these meetings is thrown away -- whether it has been touched or not. San told me where she waitressed the venues were so reluctant to feed the staff, even after work, that entire platters of untouched food would just be thrown away.

So I ask, what am I doing with my life? I told San I have looked at doing aid work overseas, but I have no skills, no qualifications. Nobody needs a writer turned bartender turned PR-assistant. I should be building schools or hospitals, or digging wells, or as San put it "de-worming orphans in Rwanda". But volunteer projects are not only unpaid, but require you to pay them to take part -- to go Indonesia and build homes in devastated communities costs thousands of pounds I don't have. My ideas of working with sea turtles in Mexico again costs hundreds or thousands of pounds.

You could always compromise. You could work for a charity in an every day role, charities and aid organisations need public relations, they need writers, they need accountants and HR people. And maybe that's the way to go, to find the little way you can be making a difference.

Because right now, with my 12 hour days and feeling like I should be happy to come home and watch television for an hour or two before going to bed and getting up and doing it all again... It's not me. I need more in my life, I know, and I tell myself with a regular income I will be able to have things like surfing and snowboarding in my life on a semi-regular basis, I will be able to go out and meet new and interesting people. But I still feel like I should be doing something, something other than getting sportswear featured in consumer magazines.

Not so funny

Five years ago, almost exactly, I went to New York -- effectively on my own.

I don't remember the precise dates, except that it was for Tom's birthday. There's a few other things I don't remember exactly, like why it was that Tom was going there on one date to meet his twin brother and I was going to meet them there a few days later. It seemed like a good enough idea at the time.

I arrived late on a hot night, and it seemed even later waiting alone at the airport for Tom to meet me. This could be seen now as a bad omen, but at the time I was just glad when he did meet me and we trekked into the city itself.

I had booked a room for seven nights in "The Big Apple Hostel", and only that hostel in particular because I thought that was where Tom was staying. It was him who had told me about the place in the first place -- but obviously I probably should have checked with him before I booked it. Because when I got there I found Tom and his brother were staying in a flea pit in Brooklyn, and none of us had any idea how to find my place. I wasn't what you'd call "organised".

Considering the hostel was one of the best known and most popular in the city, it seemed strange that nobody we asked had ever heard of it. Policemen we asked had no idea what a hostel was -- "Do you mean 'hotel'?" they would ask, and we'd have to explain to them what a hostel was, to be met with confused expressions. In the end I slept on the floor where Tom was staying, and early the next day he took me to the subway station and we arranged a time and place to meet.

I found my hostel easily enough the next day, and they asked where I'd been the day before. I explained my trouble finding the place, and they suggested I should have called. I still don't know why nobody we asked knew where it was.

When the time came for Tom and I to meet, he didn't show. Or at least, we didn't meet -- whether one or other of us was waiting in the wrong place I don't think we ever established. But that morning when he took me to the subway was the last I would see of him, not just in New York but I think for the rest of the time we were away from home.

Once or twice there would be messages left for me from him where I was staying, but it seemed to me at the time like it was too much trouble for him to actually wait for me -- since I had no way to contact him, other than leaving replies to his messages.

Aside from the incident I have mentioned before where I was relieved of $100, I managed reasonably well in the city on my own. I found jazz clubs -- avoid "Blue Note", it might be old and famous but the door charge was excessive, the drinks overpriced and the jazz very unimpressive. Instead, visit "Smalls"; an amateur jazz club held underground in an old meat locker. Entry was free, the club was unlicenced although they provided complimentary soft drinks, and the jazz went on all night.

I visited various comedy clubs -- again of varying quality and reputation -- but it felt strange doing these things alone. Sitting on my own at a table for two in a bar/restaurant/comedy club I felt especially conspicuous.

I was reminded of this time last night when I ended up going alone to a comedy club in London. San and I visited the same club last week, and when booking our tickets I'd noticed this week that Rich Hall was performing. Being a big fan of his work, I booked tickets for then, too. On Friday I got a message from San asking if we were "still on" for Saturday night, I assured her we were and if she could remember, I'd booked tickets the weekend before. No more was said about it. Saturday morning San told me in a text that she wouldn't be able to see me during the day, as she had a hair appointment, but we were still on for the evening.

A little later we established that we'd meet "7-ish", and I reminded San the show was to start at 8pm. Shortly before I was leaving, San said we had better make it more like 7.30, and that she would meet me there. Reluctantly I agreed, and told her I would be very annoyed if she didn't make it in time. She assured me she would be there. The plan soon changed to if I could leave her ticket on the door, she would meet me inside. Again, this plan changed to could I ask what time they stopped allowing admission? I said to her "You're not coming, are you?" but she insisted she really was, although she might miss the first act.

I got there early, and arranged for her ticket to be left on the door, so long as she could get there by 9.30 it all would be fine. I took my seat, and marked her seat next to me with my coat. Throughout the evening I kept glancing over at her chair, as if she might miraculously appear in the spot. As time got later, I'd be glancing round at the door any time I saw movement. 8.30 she told me was finished, and I asked her if she could make it in an hour -- "I think so" she said.

I was preoccupied all night, glancing at the time, unable to concentrate fully. I felt conspicuous, especially since during the first act not only was the seat next to me empty but the entire rest of the row. I was glad to be a few rows back so nobody much would notice.

I think it was 9.20 when I sent San a message asking her if she was there yet. She replied saying she'd just arrived, but they were refusing her entrance. I offered to have words myself, or try and have words with the compere -- I was even prepared to try and talk to one of the comedians themselves. But San told me not to, that it was done now, and just to enjoy myself. It seemed ironic that Rich Hall himself should then have been late arriving.

Obviously, he was good, and very funny, but my heart really just wasn't in it. I didn't want to be annoyed at San -- it wouldn't change anything and it wasn't really her fault -- but I couldn't understand why she had made the appointment for Saturday, even if she couldn't get one any other day. I didn't see why it couldn't have waited a week, for a night I hadn't pre-booked tickets. I wanted to tell her I'd had a really shit week, and being alone in a comedy club wasn't a great way to round it off.

San tried to wait around for when the club finished, but she said she was being followed by a creepy guy who kept asking her phone number. The night finished and I weighed up my options; if I hadn't been facing a cab ride home I might not have gone back to San's. The tube seemed to take forever, and San was contrite when I finally arrived at hers. I told her the comedy had been only average, and I was still annoyed at her. We watched tv half heartedly until about 2am.

It was only today that I established from San that the urgency with her hair appointment was because of her graduation this week. She said she'd even booked the appointment on Monday, and Saturday had really been the only day available, even that the girl doing her hair and told her she should be done by 7. I accept that San needed to look her best for her graduation, and it was just unfortunate circumstance that it had spoiled the night.

I can't say I'm not still a little sore about it, even if it could't be helped, and I've told San she really owes me one for it. She suggested if I finish work early one night this week we could go for happy hour in the bar I like.

Happy hour isn't going to cut it, I told her.

Sometimes it rains inside my head

I feel like I'm drowning.

Logically, it makes no difference. It doesn't matter if you can recognise the problem isn't external, it makes no odds if you can identify nothing has really changed around you. Even if you could run a test and show an chemical imbalance in the brain or in the blood, nothing would be any different for it.

I visualise swimming, and something dark wrapped around my ankles. I feel like I'm struggling to break the surface, I feel like I'm gasping for air. And I feel like every time I'm being pulled under.

A human being that was given to fly

I dreamed last night (probably more like 10 this morning, but still) that I could fly. Inspired by China Blue's mention of her own desire to fly -- which probably prompted my whole dream -- I had to record it here.

Remembering the dream is like changing the tv channel onto a film that's already halfway through; I don't recall how it started or the background details that would be needed to make sense. The important was that somehow with the aid of a run up and a sort of leather strap that worked as a seat, I could fly. I was flying over fields and woodland, and would go low enough to talk to people, then flying miles high above the trees.

Unfortunately -- and I think this might say something about my state of mind -- there was sometimes a sense of unease, a lack of understanding of how it was this leather strap enabled me to fly (although I wasn't surprised at all, neither were anyone I encountered, even if they might have been slightly jealous). Because I didn't understand how it worked, I would get worried that it could fail. The higher I'd go, the more danger I'd realise I was in -- soaring high over a forest it struck me suddenly I was doomed if I suddenly lost it.

I don't know why then I didn't just land, but instead I flew out over the ocean -- I think coming down might have been a problem, maybe the speed I was travelling, too -- but the ocean was a steely grey-blue. Why would it have been somehow better to drop into the ocean, miles from shore? I don't know, but that's what I reasoned -- if I should fall, I wouldn't be killed.

As ever, a dream of flying just makes me want to return to sleep. I want back that feeling of flying, but of course -- I want it back with control. Sometimes I like to imagine where I'd go, if I could fly. Supposing it was only the equivalent speed of a regular jog, so travelling great distances would be out of the question. I scope out buildings, great cathedrals or rooftops, imagine sitting on top, unnoticed.

Last night with San we took the lift to the top floor of her flats, so I could look out over the city. We haven't been up there since the New Year's Eve when we watched fireworks, instead last night we just stood in the dark while I made out London landmarks, pointed out bedrooms lit by televisions, or watched people walking or driving far below. I imagine that is a bit like flying, being unnoticed and so quiet above all the houses.

Looking forwards

Yesterday's post was about all I am going to say to mark 7/7 -- I could write pages and pages of contradictory and rambling thoughts, but I'd prefer not to. I marked midday with two minutes of reflection, and a silent prayer for peace, love and understanding. But life goes on, life has to go on, and I'm not going to dwell on something so sad and horrible as that day.

Instead, things at work are looking up. My colleague George is leaving for greener pastures, after several months of paid work experience. Early on into my initial contract I mused on what I would say if they offered me a similar contract to his; paid work experience but paid only at £100 a week. Since my travel costs me about £70 to £85 a week, depending on the travelcard, I had thought about how I might have to turn it down because it was impractical. But I quickly learned that without this experience I am not going to get a job, and since I have been willing to work for only my travel costs, it might be wiser to accept it.

George is leaving, and I have been offered his job. It's a promotion of sorts for me -- different accounts, slightly more money, slightly more responsibility, and a three-month contract. That means no more asking to renew my contract and no uncertainty on if I will still have a job one month to the next. And at the end of it I will have six months experience, good enough for an entry-level job. So it's just three more months of impoverished living, with any luck.

When I started in PR earlier this year I had hoped to mark July 4 with starting a real job, it could be my own "independence day", I thought. Perhaps that target was a little unrealistic, but it's a step in the right direction.

After work yesterday I invited San to meet me, then took her to the bar I had met Jade in all those weeks ago. A warm Friday evening and happy hour was just ending, so we found a space to stand at the bar and enjoyed the atmosphere and the feeling like being in another country. We drank and chatted for hours and caught up and she told me about her time in Argentina. I'm going to make the place my new favourite bar, and will just have to hope I don't run into Jade in there...

When Morning Comes

A young British man he strap a bomb to himself
and then he get onto a London bus...
Blew off the roof and explode a nation with fear
We saw the war was coming home to us

Smoke on the underground the train
Go BANG BANG BOOM!
Bodyparts propelled out with the truth
Can't hide the reality now, it looks us in the eye
But why does it take a white face in the hopsital
To demand a two minute silence?

Two million people march along the Thames
Angry at foreign policy
sad the government had
Put them in danger
As they prepare for war illegally

Screaming and shouting
Loud uprise a people now
Falling upon deaf ears,
Said that they be here to protect and serve
But I don't think we really deserved
To be decieved in this way
And now I'm thinking about a revolution

Roots rock rebel
Will I be here when the morning comes?

As civil rights are being reigned back in
Now I'm fearful of the police state
Proud of a culture that rejected the firearm
But now the police shoot an innocent dead
Playing on the terror scare, solution they prepare?
Compulsory ID! In their wisdom?
Protection?! Downpression!!
And they got the nerve to tell me I'm free

We been betrayed, and enraged
And now I'm thinking about a revolution

Roots rock rebel
Will I be here when the morning comes?

(taken from the self titled album, by Suicide Bid. One year ago today; this is not Musical Monday.)



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Midweek update

It's a grey and rainy afternoon in East London, and the office is almost empty with people out on their lunch breaks. The only sounds are the faint music from the radio playing on someone's laptop over the other side of the office, and the occasional key-tones of someone making phone calls on speaker phone.

Things are going pretty well, considering. Gainful, paid employment is still yet to be achieved -- however, what my little meeting last week with the MD did seem to achieve is an extension to my contract for "initially" another month (I think it's important they used that word) and that they setting me up with my own place to sit, presumably with computer and telephone, that will be all mine for as long as I stick around. All I want now is a little sign on the desk with my name on it. Or maybe an office. And a secretary...

So why is it today I feel a strange, drawing, sadness? I'm not so fussed about the weather that I care if it's rainy after a few days of heatwave -- sure, I can't go sit on the grass and read a book, but I could still go for a walk. Maybe it's a change in air pressure has affected my mood.

San's back safely from Argentina, and we've made vague plans to meet up and see a film on Friday night. At least San is still around when all the girls in my life I try to date have fizzled out and lost interest. We may be just friends, but it's reassuring in a way that there is enough about me to want to stay close to. Of course, if I want to meet more people an obvious idea would be to get out more -- but sometimes the idea seems almost too difficult, or it does when you have to really force yourself to be outgoing.

It's sort of strange, who I am in work is not who I am in the rest of the world. Sometimes I feel like I can be blurring the lines between who I am. Between the shy boy that eats his lunch on his own every day with a book, and the confident upbeat person who talks to journalists on the phone about fashion or sport and who asks the MD for a job. But I'm not there yet, if I ever will be.

I've taken more risks and bold moves in my life than most of my friends, I stepped out of my comfort zone of my minimum wage job to go work unpaid in London to get where I want to be. I try to encourage my friends to try it for themselves, but until I actually get a 'proper job' out of it, it might be too soon to recommend it. I also take holidays on my own, and meet girls I know almost nothing about for drinks. And yet, I still feel scarred. I still feel confronted by sharp objects. And I still sit in front of the computer at 11.30 at night writing in my blog about my teenaged angst, several years too late.

Dead Flag Blues

Public Announcement:
Now that England have (predictably) crashed out of the World Cup, can we please take all the bloody flags down? I can't imagine ever feeling joy or pride or patriotism for the cross of St George. All I think of is it painted on the faces of fat, shirtless men with their beer bellies hanging down, standing in pub gardens singing "Three Lions".

Also; can chavs please now take their tattered and bent flags off their "performance" cars. All of them.

In fact, I have a request for any British bloggers -- or readers -- please, can you take and email to me pictures of sad-looking England flags? Left out in the rain, frayed around the edges, half-hanging out of a bedroom window, all that sort of thing. I want to make a collage of them.

Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift

It's hard to know where to begin talking about this week. Monday, as reported, I met with HR and wasn't what you would call inspired about my job prospects past next week. The following days were pretty uneventful -- I took a shine to a pretty girl at work (hey, it's better than meeting girls online) but despire promising early signs I think she's a non-starter. She had the most amazing eyes and a gorgeous smile, but conversation with her was difficult.

She noticed my shark-tooth necklace that I wear almost constantly, but of all the remarks she could have made about it she asked me if was one of my own teeth. If you've never seen a shark tooth you might not get why this seems like a stupid question, but they look nothing like a human tooth. We discussed where I got it from, if I had known the shark it came from (wtf?) and I think she even suggested making a necklace with one of my own teeth. I told her I wasn't planning on losing any in the near future, but I'd keep it in mind...

Thursday morning I got into work about 9am, as usual, and there was hardly anyone around. Some senior exec person was asking a colleague where the newspapers were kept, then turned to ask me when they didn't know why today's papers weren't there. I suggested they hadn't yet been delivered, and was instructed -- in a manner that suggested, I felt, that I was a lowly dog -- to go get one from reception and bring it to her, in her office. I did as I was told. Once in her office, I was instructed to find a certain page. I found it, but it was wrong -- I think I found the corresponding page in one of the supplements -- and was told to keep looking. This time I got it right, luckily for me.

I was then told to go make photocopies of the page, and then scan it. Again, did as I was told -- it felt like I was fighting with the photocopier for ages, while I tried to make it copy in A3 and not cut off part of the article. I eventually managed it, took the copies back and was scolded for copying in colour. It's too expensive, apparently. I would have been there half the day trying to change the colour settings. By this time, the exec's assistant had arrived and she offered to scan the page for me -- but I told her I'd as soon as do it myself, since if someone is on the scanner they need to use my computer anyway. And that seemed like the end of it.

Except later, the exec was passing near my desk and recognised me and took a moment to thank me for my help, and asked my name. And I had me an idea. I emailed a colleague -- and asked her, what do you think of the idea of me asking her for a job? A bit too random, since she only met me today? But my colleague said no, go for it -- this business is all about having guts (you might say it's about having balls, but men are heavily out-numbered in my workplace) and it would be a bold move. So rather than march into her office, I emailed the exec a polite email requesting a meeting with her. Skip to the end, after emails back and forth and I ask my colleague what this exec's particular job title/role was. She's the MD.

Yesterday morning I'd dressed smarter than usual -- on contrast to Thursday morning's "Department of Correction" t-shirt and skate shoes -- and marched into her office to ask her for a job. I outlined the situation -- I've been her three months, enjoy my work, feel personally involved with the campaigns, but if they don't find anywhere for me to sit I'm out of work next week. She thought it was ridiculous I might have to leave, and said of course they will find me somewhere. She also said to submit to her my CV as a formal application, and she would take it from there. It's not every day you have a meeting with the managing director, so hopefully it will be a bold move that pays off.

Determine the Optimum Age for Your Next Girlfriend

Straight from the pages of the sublime Dack.com comes a useful tool for determining how old your next girlfriend, mistress, or wife should be. Presumably casual flings are either disapproved of by the French mathematician who devised it, or not subject to the same logic. Either way, check out the table -- or work it out yourself by way of: x / 2 + 7 (where x equals the man's age).

Ladies: I suppose it works in reverse too, but maybe not? Perhaps you might be the ideal age to a man, but the ideal man from your perspective might be completely different. Does that even make sense?

Disclaimer: I don't know how it works if you're gay. I don't know how men should work out the ideal age of their next boyfriend, nor how ladies should work out the ideal age of their next girlfriend. Ask a French mathematician.

Work related stuff

After I found out on Friday there was some doubt about extending my contract, I scheduled a meeting with HR for today to talk to them about my options, ambitions and desires. And also to establish quite where I stand.

As far as I understand it, the way things stand at the moment are that my contract is extended and I am staying exactly where I am until July 7 (so a whole week longer). However, after that someone new is coming in -- which means I have to move. Incidentally, it will be the third time I have moved computers since being at the agency, so that's about once a month. I get settled in one place, and then it's "I'm sorry, son, but we need to put someone else here so you have to move".

I understand how it is though, I'm just an intern and I have to make room for the work experience already scheduled to come in. If they fall through, and don't come in the end then that's great, in that case I can stay put (hopefully), but the summer will be a busy time with students and they will struggle for space as it is.

It's quite unfortunate that I know what I am doing, am familiar with the clients and where the accounts are going and have been trying to establish a relationship with the media -- because if I go, the new person will have to start over completely.

I have told HR I would like to get experience in corporate and healthcare, too -- if only to broaden my horizons, and make sure that consumer PR is what I want to do. Given a straight choice, though, I'd just as soon as stay put where I am, working on the accounts I already am, and build on my career from there. But I guess it's not that simple -- there's just not a job to give me, even if it seems like there would be.

My main motivation right now is to stay at the agency -- leaving would make me technically unemployed, and the chances of finding another placement right away are very slim this time of year. However, I'm broke having been out of work for the past three months and at the encouragement of HR here and the need to start earning, I am applying for other positions. I have applied to two 'rival' agencies tonight alone.

It has been made very clear to me how valued I am on the respective accounts, and I am in no doubt how wanted, welcome and well-liked I am. Unfortunately, those things aren't enough to give me a job, and after July 7 it is unclear where I will be working.

Edit: It occurs to me now the significance of the date, July 7. Maybe I need to get things in perspective a little.

Musical Monday (#6)

"Ooh wop, bop ba doo wop, bop ba doo wop, bop ba doo."

Terrorvision described themselves as a band "always too busy having a good time to ever take themselves too seriously", and it could be this philosophy that was behind them never really getting the commercial success they deserved. In 1999, as a student and aspiring journalist, I was lucky enough to interview the guitarist, Mark Yates. I asked him then about the forthcoming album and if he thought the unknown rock band from Bradford they started out as would have been impressed at what they had become.

He told me he thought they would have been surprised more than anything -- but at the same time, he felt that it sort of had a tendency to come and go for the band, and that every album felt like a comeback album.

For many people, and most rock fans, the high point of Terrorvision's career was their second album How to Make Friends and Influence People, it is considered the hardest rocking of their output, but it also was host to the song today's post is about -- Oblivion. Terrorvision prided themselves on mixing "pop hooks with metal guitars" ('metal' in the loosest sense of the word, to be fair) and live they often commented how they had been advised against Oblivion. "You can't put doo-wop in a song, you're a rock band" they'd been told, to which the band had replied "Fuck off, we're Terrorvision".

Without a doubt Oblivion is one of their biggest hits -- each album had a similar catchy song, be it "My House" from their debut album, "Perseverance" from their James Bond-parody album "Regular Urban Survivors", their dance-crossover "Tequila" or the last offerings "D'ya Wanna Go Faster" and "Fists of Fury". Incidentally, Terrorvision officially called it a day after BBC Radio 1 wouldn't play their single "Fists of Fury", claiming the band were no longer "relevant".

Each of those songs could be recognisable, they were certainly popular to varying degrees at the time, but Oblivion -- a catchy song that covers the subject of intolerance and genocide -- is timeless. Unfortunately, several years later Hanson released the song Mmm Bop, with a catch that was annoyingly-similar.

At one time, they were my favourite band -- I always upheld they were not the "best" band in the world, merely my favourites -- and so to honour the fallen heroes of rock, I include the iconic "Oblivion".

Darkside Lightside

I think I'm a bad judge of character. I have been musing over various people in my life -- friends, lovers, those who've shown me love, or come close -- and realised, not for the first time, that so many people occupy a strange grey area. I'm not saying I'm friends with all the wrong people, but that a lot of people I know I am really not sure if they are good or evil.

I can't go into many specific names -- damn you, blogger, for being so easily found in search engines -- but there are individuals that I can't quite work out. I have a friend who has apparently claimed his older brother sexually abused him, as a child. This is disturbing, because it means one of the two of them is seriously disturbed. Either someone is lying about it -- which is sick -- or it really happened, and we're sitting and talking quite happily with a pervert. Unfortunately, general opinion leans towards someone being a liar.

Then there's people like Deb, whom I have never really got a handle on. I don't think she led me on, but she certainly knew at the time I liked her... Sometimes when I talk to her, just her and me, I get this weird vibe like she wants me to kiss her -- but I tried that at New Year and she didn't go for it at all. I'll upload here about the *one* night with her... I mentioned to Jon -- and luckily, I know he's not evil -- and he said he thinks she's a bit of a tease, since she's apparently carrying on in some context with our friend Dave.

I've mentioned it before, and one late night -- when I'd sneaked out of the house while my parents were asleep to go play pool with Deb -- I asked her "So are you shagging Dave, or what?" and she was insulted at the suggestion, said they were just friends. But they have been spending time in his bedroom together with the light out when they think nobody is home. Which leads me to Dave: friend or foe. He knows perfectly well I was in love with Deb, or something like it, and one night we walked home in the rain and I poured my soul out to him, in my verbal-diahrhea drunken way, about all of my feelings for her. And then it seemed like he moved right on in there.

So that's two people sort of in one, Dave and Deb. Is she evil and manipulative and a tease and just likes to dangle the idea of her in front of me and watch me jump for it? Or is she just confused, not sure what she wants, lonely and in need of friends -- and possibly sleeping with Dave, but that's between her and her boyfriend. and Dave. And what about Dave -- is it any concern of his if a girl he likes is also liked by a friend of his? I think Dave has a very dark side he keeps hidden, but who am I to criticise? I have fantasised about burning his house down, just because "I saw her first". Obviously, I should point out for anyone wondering, I never actually would do that -- in a year or two I won't even remember what it was all about. But all the same, the idea floats to the surface of my consciousness.

Then there's people like Jade, whom I meet and seem perfectly nice and friendly and then she drops me like I'm something slightly less welcome than nose-picking.

And the list goes on and on, people I'm close to whom sometimes I think are good, and sometimes I think are evil and manipulative, and never being really sure. And thinking I'll just go live in a cave somewhere on my own instead. Because I know I'm no better, I wonder about myself as well -- am I a good person, do I mean well and try not to do anybody any harm? Do I try and live according to karmic laws and noble truths and sevenfold paths, or do I just hurt people and manipulate people into getting my own way?

A few weeks back, I was with San and she was lazily tracing the lines on my hand. She was shocked by it, she practically sat up and paid attention when she turned to me and said "You have a really bad temper" no kidding, I said. But she said she'd never seen it. "And you have a jealousy line than runs almost the entire length of your palm", remember wanting to burn down Dave's house? Thinking about Macbeth in work, and if I would get promoted if I murdered colleagues... I keep these things hidden.

I was considering this week changing my user pic -- that the whole Star Wars jedi/dark side metaphor for working in the media was wearing a little thin. The joke wasn't so funny, and I was using lightly something that was quite serious, the nature of being evil. But then I'm reminded of what dwells within me, and I feel it's maybe not so far from the truth -- sometimes I really feel the picture represents me.

At the end of the day, who do you know how to trust if you're not even sure about yourself?