Concept is as follows:

1. In around 200-300 words, just ramble on about something or other that you've been thinking about recently or that bothers you or makes you larf or cry or puke.

2. Do not respond to previous posts on this thread in any way, do not quote, do not comment. If a particular post gets you all excited and seems worth discussing in detail, or if it inspires you in some other way, then start a thread about it elsewhere. This thread is for random, individual and unconnected little bijou postettes relating to nothing at all but themselves.

TYhe company's fuckled you fucking bastards y I don;lt give a fuck i aint been paid SO WHY SHOUFL I GIE A FUCK -
YEAH AND DON'T THINK I HAVENT HAD TEN FUCKING PHONE CALLS WITH PIUSSED OFF FUCKS THAT HAVE BEEN KNOWCKED FOR THIR MONEY AND HAVING A GO AT ME WOINT GET YOU YOUR FUCKING MONEY - YEH IO KNOW UTS SHIT I know Inow inow Oknow O knoiw....i know....i...no...

Doing the same thing every day is neccesary to some extent - cleaning teeth, leaving the house at the same time, getting the same bus etc. But a routine as glaringly unhealthy as eating a fuck off burger every day is something that needs to be stopped, and the second that I understand this, my craving for the burger and Guiness rockets sky high, becomes a guilty pleasure, and therefore more pleasurable than before. A vicious circle disguised as routine - I say disguised' because every day the experience intesifies, causing the actions of sitting, eating, and drinking to become nothing more than a conduit for the real business of accelerating guilt. How to stop it?

I can hear the sizzle of the fat. I found my strength yesterday, with the bagette incident, but today doesn't feel so good. I can see the cheese stretching between my teeth and the burger in my hand. I can taste the iron of the Guiness. How can I remove myself from a future that has been determined by the memory of the senses? Time is slowing down, and I'm breaking into a light sweat. I know that there are other possibilities for 1.30PM, but they feel like roadside banners; flying past me as I continue my journey to Heart Attack, Arizona.

And why can't love be like in films, when you 'know', and would move mountains for them, let alone get rid of your cats? Why no black and white? Why a succession of shades of grey, and about as interesting?

There she is - stressed, if those lines are anything to go by. I suspect a blind man could stroke his all-seeing palms along that forehead and read the words 'help me', in perfect Braille.

Responsibility is like a canyon for her, and the nauseating vertigo of doubt tugs her gaze downwards. She resists: eyes front, she focus resolutely on the towering walls of Todo which surround her. Thoughts and deadlines echo back from every direction, their booming bass-lines accompanied by the electronic sing song of external phone calls and the shrill backing vocals of expectant harpie colleagues. This band play Merry Hell, available on the soundtrack of her life in all good record stores. She won't see any of the royalties because this deal is a stitch up - a Hellish jazz jam to pluck the golden fiddle from a young upstart from Georgia and place it back where it belongs, in the greedy hands of the Devil.

And, like much live jazz, the only way to appreciate the intricacy of this 'music' is to give each individual player, in turn, the focus they deserve. But she doesn't have time to 'give the drummer some', she can't concentrate on the rapid, varied pulse of a million bass notes or the trembling treble of the harpie vocals. And as for the electronic, polyphonic, telephonic beepmaster - all snug and smug in his cradle, dial set to 'forward all calls' - his round of applause will just have to wait.

If she found the time to fucking listen, perhaps she'd be drawn to the haunting, desperate call of his melody; maybe she'd be caught up in the rich tale spelt out by his relentless beeps. Who knows, she might even find herself entranced by a melody so pregnant with desperation and grief - she just might scoop him from his cradle, hold him to her cheek and tenderly caress his face whilst whispering softly in his ear.

If she did that, if she picked him up, they could sail away, across the fibre optic ocean that separates her from our second central player. He'd offer a warm and supportive welcome, for sure.

I know this because 'he' is me. And, whilst I fully understand her pain, I would be most appreciative if she would just call me back about my fucking contract.

It's something about the neat, pristine piles of smart notebooks, perched enticingly next to FULL boxes of pens. In different colours, with different nib sizes. Felt tips, ballpoints, biros, in green and purple, even. Begging to be opened and scribbled fascinatingly across clean white pages.

And lovely pencils, as well, not chewed or inaccurately sharpened, but with that perfect factory-sharpened grooved point, and smooth pink erasers on the end, not hardened or blackened with use.

Coloured highlighters, and Post-its, all waiting for me to pounce on something worth highlighting and foreground it for ever.

Buff files that are special legal ones so they have their own pink binding tape. A shade of pink that suits the particular shade of mushroom-buff to perfection.

Theres never any paracetemal in the house when I'm ill. Staggering to the shops in the midday sun is as good as it gets. Fruit flys sticking to my lime green snot that is streaming from my face. When I get into the local shop I look for the easiest meal to cook and sadly all they have is a tin of meatballs.

The Sun was outraged at this picture simply existing. It was disgusting, they said, and had already been ‘owned’ by several ‘people’ before appearing in this particular exhibition or prize giving where they had spotted it. The tone of the article made it clear that owned meant wanked over and people meant paedophiles.

The weird thing is The Sun squared off the little girl’s wendy. They boxed her foo. In classic black-stripe-across-eyes fashion, they dirtied the image.

So that’s your opinion then, Elphick. Why you say you no know?

Because the picture was crap. I mean, it was good, but it wasn’t art. There was no obvious argument for its inclusion as art. It was a snap, a good one, of a daughter. Only it couldn’t have been taken by the mother or father because the girl was distant-looking. Unhappy. It was cold. So we can assume it was taken by a camera-buff relative or friend. Or just a camera-buff. But why?

Assuming that genuine images of children engaged in sexual acts are relatively difficult to obtain – and also run counter to a theory about paedophilia I read in the paper, written by an actual paedophilic (fee for article donated to charity) in which he said most sites carry pictures of kids, normal kids, caught half dressed or sucking lollypops, very few are posed, fewer are ‘pornographic’ – then surely this photo is kiddieporn. Extreme kiddieporn.

…I’m going on holiday next week. No idea where – we’re booking as close to take-off as possible. No idea exactly who with – it was three of my friends but one of them seems to be having second thoughts. Don’t know when we’re leaving, so we’re all going to be at my friend’s house for the next few nights with our suitcases. I’m very excited, however. My new holiday clothes are lovely and I aim to tan safely yet gorgeously.

Three colour styles. Four languages. Which makes twelve sets of thirty or so pages. And aroundd three hundred images to go with each template.

In addition to the making the logistics of file and version management a little painful, it means that in all we are dealing with nearly four-hundred pages. And around four-thousand images. Nearly all of these are differently coloured buttons with legends in Espanol, Nederlands, Dansk and Svensk. Two images for each button, for the client insisted, naturally, on having rollover-effect buttons.

There is one word I can apply to this project: exponential. Which also applies to the file managenment list for the images which is contained on a now rather cumbersome xls file.

I'm having to manage all this mularkey, and it's sunny outside.

I spend a long time thinking about procrastination and time-management, generally. But I suspect... no, I know, that I'm using this self-analysis as a means to further delay the inevitable onset of action. I'm pretty sure that psychotherapists would be able to explain why I do this. But I don't really need to know why. I don't even need to know how to stop doing it. I just need to stop. Or start. Or whatever.

Maybe if I think hard enough about it, my ears will start to bleed. But that thought just panders to the vain hope that I'll be legitimately delayed from focusing on the should-be object of my attention.

Hold on.

Her name is Leah Mclaren. How I managed to forget the name of that arch nemesis of TMO (actually that would be IJ, I presume, but we loathed Leah for at least a fortnight, didn't we?) I really don't know - perhaps my denial is a defence mechanism to prevent my brain from eating itself.

It didn't matter, though, because we don't really need memories anymore, we have Google instead. I simply typed the words 'bilge-weaned poltroon' into that majestic search engine and, voila, Leah appeared like a less appealing version of Candyman.

To some, notably the entire staff of London's Evening Standard, Leah was the epitome of boho style. For me, she was a tube of drawing ointment made flesh. That magical balm, as any robust tree-climbing youth of yester-year will know (or perhaps it's just me), was applied to infected cuts and grazes to "draw out the pus". An unpleasant thought, but there you go.

Leah's a pretty unpleasant thought too, but, like the ointment, she served a useful purpose for a while - lancing the boil of TMO until page after page of ghastly venom had been safely expelled.

But, it seems, I need a bile magnet like Leah. Every Saturday (or thereabouts) I actually miss Mclaren. Why else would I turn to Zoe Williams 'Things you only know if you're not at work' column with such clockwork regularity? What other excuse can I have for greedily devouring her lazy excuse for writing only to vomit it back up again over anyone who'll listen?

Now, Zoe may well write many interesting articles on a whole number of subjects. For all I know, she earns her crust with weighty, well written pieces covering everything from the war in Iraq to the colour of Jamie Oliver's wife. It's entirely possible Zoe is a friend of someone who actually posts here. If any of the above is true, I apologise. But only if she apologises to me first, for the license to print money that is her 'Things you only know if you're not at work' column.

I've resisted starting a Rant thread on the subject because I don't want to give Zoe the airtime but this thread seems to be tailor made to suit all my venting needs.

Things you need to know about Zoe Williams' 'Things you only know if you're not at work' column.

• It would make less insulting reading if it consisted of nothing more than a three hundred word poem using just the words 'money,' 'old' 'rope' and 'for'.

• When a newly-verbal toddler points at a dog and proudly announces, 'cow!' then loses his balance and falls backwards with a giggle and a squelch - his tiny rear cushioned by a nappy full of shit - his observation is infinitely more insightful than any in Ms Williams column.

• Nothing contained in her column is known only by people who do not 'go out' to work for a living. Unless...

• ...it's something only Zoe Williams knows because she's Zoe Williams, like where she lives or the colour of her curtains.

• She gets to write it.

• She writes it at home.

I think Dang specified 200 words, so, like Zoe's column, it's high time I stopped. By way of summation, I'll pick a couple of topics at random from Zoe's recent columns.

Hang on. Google, here we come.

Keeping your clothes clean is harder than you think

We've all stopped eating hummus. Haven't we?

Perfect.

I'll tell you lot. Don't ever work in a call centre. Just don't. You may think it is a lazy fucking analogy comparing them to sweatshops, but yeah - that is what they are.

My old job was working on a helpdesk, one step up from a call centre. Now I have another job which is doing something else. You know what? I feel guilty for walking away from my desk and getting a cup of coffee without getting someone else's say so. I feel guilty for having a 2 minute wander just to stretch my legs.

Remember that scene in `The Shawshank Redemption' where the Morgan Freeman character asks his boss for permission to piss after he has served his time? I feel like that. No one checks up on me to see if I get in on time. No one checks up on me to see if I hang about till `going home time'.

I've been vocationally institutionalised...

There were pictures all around of some beardy dude with a mop top haircut called, I discovered later, Phillipe Starck. Apparently he's a famous designer or something. He turned up a bit later wearing a jacket and jeans combo, which to my mind should preclude him from being famous for anything, let alone being renowned for his aesthetics. His wife was a minger, too, for that matter.

He had designed the product that we were there to look at and gave a big long speech about how his product was a window onto the workings of the universe and other such guff. I concentrated mainly on scarfing the canapes - the shape and colour of which, the chef told me, were designed to resemble the product. The upshot of this was a load of cubes of food hurled together with little regard as to the effect on the palate so long as the colour scheme was correct. Think vodka jelly with beef and mustard.

Because this dude, Phil, was a big design type there were loads of 'design' oriented press there, with designer haircuts and designer suits. I was wearing an 8 year old suit that my dad bought me from C&A for £79 because I needed something to wear to a funeral. It's my protest suit: I wear it whenever I have to go to a wanky event for which I resent dressing up.

So it goes on. I keep necking back the champagne and the canapes, and this guy keeps drivelling on about precision and the universe and how his sleek design ethos created this amazing tool that's going to revolutionise our lives. Did I mention what the product was?

A. Fucking. Alarm. Clock.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sky:
x

[ 25 June 2003: Message edited by: Sky ]

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The rest of my week's holiday will have to be spent recovering; drinking cool, alcoholic summer drinks under shade in the garden, perhaps propped on some soft cushions, being fanned by a nubile young manservant in a state of undress.

Edit: full stops are good. They end sentences.

Gym Time has been on my lips and on my list for months now, but have I gone? Have I buggery. Have you? Of course not. Who does? Well, all the people I saw, they did. What possesses a woman to wear cycling shorts in grey marl? When there are delicious flarey scritchy-scratchy black trousers for sale that make you look Cool and Lovely? Freak. I rode my little bicycle there and the elastic bits that are purely for show on the bottom of my scritchy-scratchy trousers got all tangled up around my pedals, but I didn't mind, I just pulled the stupid elastic bits off. Nothing was going to stop me. I was going to the cocking gym and that's just the way it was gonna be.

They never really change. I mean, the room was bigger. Longer. The class was pretty oldstyle, but I knew I'd never find a teacher to match up to Skinny Mike, and with this health - these fag-scorched lungs, these drug-molested nostrils, this alcohol-ravaged booty - who am I to complain? Half-way through I pulled the wristband from my wrist and dragged it around my fuscia face. I was having Fun; getting so drenched and exhausted I thought I'd fall, counting one-two-three-four now knee-lift and back onto step and turn away from step and quickly one-two up on the step knee lifting arms twisting and elevating and again one-two-three-four and yes. Liminal states, the mind finally battered to quietitude, the body asserting its dominance once more. The legs quivering for the slow march to the shower, body hot, wet, stinging.

I'm just going to have to get used to being naked, I told myself, as I lowered my head and curled my torso forwards and reached behind me for the clasp of my bra. I peeled it off and then peeled off my socks and trousers and pants and deposited them on my burning trainers. I grabbed for my towel that Sam had given me, with the fawn and the bunny and the mushroom on it, and quickly wrapped it around me with relief. The showers were communal. I'm just going to have to get used to being naked, I repeated in my head. There was another girl in there and I peeped at her body: how odd, she is a different shape to me, bigger: the waist indents differently, her buttocks look small and flat, her hips high.

Get used to being naked. It is hours later, now, and I lie in bed. My head feels different to before. I have found my summer obsession. This isn't premature. This is how it will be. Just as a muscle retains a memory of how it was once trained, years later - it will never take as long to strengthen as it did the very first time, for it has learned what to do and how to do it - so too do I know exactly what is going to happen. I will be there every day, five, six times per week. Sometimes I will do two classes back to back. In order to explain it to my friends, I will tell them that the way I feel when I trek from the class to the changing-room - head blurry, swimming, eyes down, all focus on the simple yet beautiful act of walking, limbs turned to butter, heavy as stone - I will tell them this feels like ecstasy, that I am simply exploring endorphins and adrenaline as we have explored dopamine and seratonin.

I will get used to being naked. As I lie here, my body resting lightly on the futon, duvet pulled high, thumb in mouth, hair round fingers, I realise what is going to happen. One session, just one, and the body makes clear its demands. I slide my hand down my body as I think about what I am going to do. What he is going to do. I will make him do it. When I am finished, I am going to get out of bed. I am going to write him an email. I will summon him.

instead she walked towards him with her silver pen in hand and said 'you know the drill, simon'. he liked that and so did i, it was insouciant and comparitively clever. you know why we're here, lets not beat around the bush. we're not gonna act all 'you are my god', we just really fucking like what you do, it said. she was funny, and had nice shoes. he signed my video: 'alice, good deadness, simon pegg', it says. i am happy with that. an element of personalisation is always good. how wierd must that be though, to have done something that makes people want your name written on their belongings? how strange it must be to one day, just be doing what you do, and the next become someone whose presence transforms quite geeky but ordinary looking 20 year old boys into tiggery children.

they are geeky, those spaced kids. lovely, but geeky. we were leaving the set for lunch and as we passed the monitors simon pegg thanked us for our sterling work, and one of the geeks couldnt help himself, he was like, 'dont worry! its been brilliant! the best thing ive ever done!' as i walked level with simon he looked at the assistant director and went, 'oh, good', in this...it wasnt nasty, more sort of 'ooohkay, thanks for that'. i had to laugh.

and theres nothing wrong with geeky, fuck knows i do historical reenactment and have been known to gasp involuntarily in comic shops; im not one to talk. there is a quiz doing the rounds on the net, how geeky are you? i am just a pretender, 56 out of 150, i dont know enough about computers or star trek or larp to be a real geek, and thank the stars for it. but that quick razor sharp intake of breath on finding a box of 1960s era dan decarlo archies or the rare piece of vinyl in a cardboard box at the back of the charity shop, next to a pile of copies of 'foetal attraction' by kathy lette (go to your nearest charity shop and walk to the bookselves, i garantee, i will bet you a small amount of english cash money that there will be a copy of 'foetal attraction'. its like, the dune of the noughties)- the geek gasp, the noise that collectors make when they find that thing, the thing that will sit in the special place, rarely touched, never used, always loved, in a plastic bag in a special drawer. i have made that noise, and it is like walking down dalston high street behind a girl with a really really nice arse, and i cant stop looking i cant i cant. when it finishes and the moment is gone the only thing in my head is wow, that must be what being a boy is like.

so i have my video and i even have special super-geek photos on their way. me and simon pegg, doing the arms round each others shoulders thing...and then me and nick frost, doing the same. nice smile, click, thanks a lot. i am 28 years old, and i have never ever had that photo taken with anyone celeb-ish, its not me and i dont do it. i just really like what they do. there is part of me that thinks, that was really sad, you fucking loser. you fangirl. and there is part of me that thinks, awww, they were really nice and funny, and its nice when people you dig arent twats, and it must be nice for them knowing that people like what they do. but still.

The upshot being that I'm more confident in public. I wasn't lacking confidence before, but now I being to realise that I can, should I desire, use my presence 'on' people to my advantage by 'being big', you know, just standing there. It's REALLY strange. I should say that coming to this realisation later in life gives me a certain detachment ie, I don't intend to go around intimidating people in a way that a 'big guy' might if he were 16 and full of testosterone, but as I'm sure you can imagine, being able to exude the presence of a bouncer can be helpful in some situations.

i lost it. it was lost. i was used to being the second or third most attractive man in a room. I got used to being ashamed of my appearance. you cannot -- unless you value control like I do, unless your face was so important to you -- you cannot understand the effect.

Today i was invited to model alongside this girl. we drank champagne all morning. we ate twice-the-flavour marks and spencer crisps. she answered my questions graciously. she was 19, and is on the cover of this month's J-17. she at least pretended to be impressed by the fact that I have published books.

her nipples showing through constantly, because we had to wear white. I thanked a year's exercise that i wasn't too ashamed to change t-shirts in front of her. tan smear of foundation on the neck.

i can't tell you what a gift it is, to be considered attractive enough, again.

I sat on the edge of his bed and gazed at his beautiful, small hands. His tiny fingers and thumbs slightly bent. I was amazed at his softly smooth skin. His baby hands.

I started to think about what lay ahead for these beautiful hands. Already they have learned how to write and draw, hold books and cutlery, piece together Star Wars Lego models, fire water-guns, throw basketballs, race Scalextric cars and manipulate a game cube. He uses those hands to hold mine on his way to school, to stroke the family cat he adores. He clasps them together when he throws his arms around my neck or my waist.

Eventually, those hands will change. They will serve new purposes. Before long, those baby hands will be the hands of an older boy, teenager, young man. What will he use them for then? Picking his nose and flicking the snot into girls' hair? Giving pensioner pedestrians the finger from the relative safety of the top deck of a bus? Furtive but ardent masturbation? Holding cigarettes and pints of beer?