StrangeReality

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

In the covered shopping arcade in town, the man was at the bottom of a slope walking toward me. I was striding along to catch the bus to work and not really paying attention. Then I heard him.

"YOU'LL ALL BE SITTING THERE IN YOUR STUPID HOUSES PAYING YOUR FUCKING TAXES."

He was a 'screamer', the sort who breaks just about every social taboo in the book by walking (or lurching) along whilst regaling the public with his views about life. At highest volume.

"YEAH? YEAH? WHAT? HEY? YEAH? WHAT? GO ON, READ YOUR STUPID NEWSPAPERS. FUCKS"

All of the 30 or so pedestrians in there with him, myself included, adopted the customary tactic of the city-dweller coming face-to-face with a 'screamer'. He is a non-person. Do not make eye-contact. He is not to be looked at or acknowledged in any way. He is to be carefully veered away from [i]without making it obvious to him that you are doing so[/i].

"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE."

He was nearly level with me now. By pretending to be interested in a shop window I had angled my path to take me out of his. He passed on my right about six feet away. By now the 'screamer' was moving within a cleared zone that was six feet square. The shoppers and workers, the tax-payers and newspaper-readers, had all scattered before him.

I walked on until he was no more than a distant rumble behind me and I didn't think about him again until just now. I couldn't even say what he looked like.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

Back to work tomorrow. The clocks here have leapt forward 1 hour. Daylight saving my arse. Now in the mornings and evenings it gets progressively lighter. I know people who believe that putting their clocks forward by 1 hour is the cause of this. You explain the rhythm of the seasons. You explain how timekeeping is a human convention. You are looked at blankly.

Just this coming week to get through. Then I have booked 4 days' holiday which, with the Easter holidays, means I will have a full 10 days off work. This on top of the sick leave I took last week: it's all a bit [i]cheeky[/i]. Don't know what the bosses at work make of me these days. I suspect they are not impressed. I also suspect that I do not care. But I can't be certain. I'll know more tomorrow.

If they believe that all my recent sick leave is stress-related (which it is, but due to my alcohol binge-drinking, not their crummy job) they might offer me a move out of the call centre - upstairs to the letter-writing section of the business. Then again, they might not. They won't.

Goodnight, friends. Salutations and [i]adieu[/i].

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

I knew I had something interesting to tell you all. I have noted that my blogs about my various anxieties, my solipsism, my trips to the doctor and so on, haven't really set the world alight. So here's something to interest everybody with putatively normal interests....

[i]DEMOCRACY DOES NOT EXIST[/i]

No, this is far more than the bog-standard (or even blog-standard) pseudo-anarchist cry of 'the system doesn't work!' Ladies and gentlemen, the system does not exist.

Democracy is where all of those who are eligible to vote do so on [i]each and every [/i]item that affects their lives. A Republic, on the other hand, is where representatives are elected to act as proxy voters on the public's behalf.

Now, see the obvious truth: [i]there are no democracies anywhere on Earth, there are only republics with a 'democratic' system of electing proxy representatives. [/i]

Next time you hear those who make so much noise on the airwaves squealing about the preciousness of 'our democratic way of life', remember what I have told you.

There never has been and there is not now any true democracy anywhere on Earth.

There is no argument here. You might just as well argue against 2+2=4.

Democracy=everybody voting about everything, i.e. all legislation, all amendments to legislation, etc.

Republic=elected representatives carrying out acts of governance on the voters' behalf.

Which one of those best describes the government where you are?

Exactly.

So no more of this misty-eyed venerating of 'western democracy'. Please.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

As I was leaving the house I saw Dave walking along the street outside. I quickly ducked back inside, splitting an infinitive as I did so, and waited for 30 seconds. When I went back out Dave was already at the end of the street. The risk was minimal: I headed off, keeping a close eye on Dave in case he doubled back on me.

I didn't know if he'd seen me just now, if he knew that I had deliberately evaded him. He's harmless enough, is Dave - pleasant and all the rest of it. But he would have required several minutes of my time, several minutes' worth of energy and effort that I just didn't want to expend. No, I'm not a people person.

Dave walked up to the library and went inside. I walked across to the supermarket where I got 20 cigarettes and tonight's vodka. Then I went for a short walk to the river and back. Partway through the return leg, I was overcome by fear and had to sit on a wall until the feeling passed. Once again I had perceived that the physical universe and its so-called reality is a comfortable delusion manufactured by social convention, and that the full-on, undiluted, indescribable reality is never too far away. One day I will not resist these moments, and I fear what might happen to me then.

Soon, my breathing returned to normal. My nascent alcoholism is the main cause of these anxieties. I hope.

I thought Dave would have left the library by now. I had a DVD with me that I needed to return, so I thought it was worth the risk. I went into the library and up to the counter. The librarian took and examined the DVD and thanked me, and I turned around and left. Dave had been at one of the computers in the corner - he hadn't seen me. I arrived home with a feeling of triumph.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

The long love affair with cigarettes is almost over. I can feel it in my gut. The so-called 'EasyWay' way - where quitting smoking is seen as easy and liberating, rather than as a chronic self-martyrdom - is proving very effective. Admittedly I haven't fully stopped smoking just yet. Tomorrow has the honour of being that day. But I'm already viewing cigarettes and smoking with the revulsion that is rightfully theirs. I am about to become a born-again non-smoker.

I will not speak of this again.

I crawled into bed at 4 o'clock this morning. After my rant about the Internet below, like all good hypocrites I spent the next few hours sampling its delights. Downloaded a few songs that I used to like. Browsed some weird and wonderful sites. Tried to get my rating on the Yahoo pool game above 1400. This proved disastrous. When I finally logged off, my rating was below 1300. People were wiping the floor with me.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

In many ways the Internet is good. In many ways the Internet is rubbish. One of the ways that the Internet is rubbish is its sheer fragmentation. I have been online now for a month and all I that I have come across are bits of stuff here, bits of stuff there.... It isn't just the hypertextuality of information on the net, which is unwieldy and reinforces lack of attention. I'm thinking about people (sorry: [i]users[/i]) who pop up from the surface to exchange a few sentences every so often, and then promptly vanish into the cyberocean, never to be seen again.

Where are the 50-year-old Texan housewives whom I should be running away with to get married to right about now? The publicity just is not right.

I am an angry Lord right now. Okay: so my tetchiness might be something to do with my various real-world anxieties. Along with my health, or should I say my hypochondria, I have to deal with the fact that I am nobody in particular and I am going nowhere quite slowly. This is fine. I can handle that. The fame-illusion, bred into all of us who are below a certain age, and based upon our earliest experiences of TV etc., is a phenomenon I came to terms with a good while ago. (Which doesn't prevent me from imagining, several times an hour, millions of folks gathered at my notional feet, chanting my name.)

It's late here and I have decided not to go to work tomorrow. At 8 o'clock in the morning I will call in to explain to my manager that I am not fit to carry out my allotted duties. That this happens to be true does not affect the paranoia I feel about calling in sick. The vodka I hold in my right hand, the cigarette in my left - these are fleeting pleasures. I relish them.

And what do I have to keep me occupied in this unforeseen downtime from work? An assortment of 'chatrooms' filled with on-screen giggling that would not challenge the attention-span of a sparrow. Multiplayer rooms where people called "'B_LASTER_X99_Q" or whatever stick together in cliques and don't let you learn the ropes. Forums where the slightest digression from the supposed 'topic' sees you lambasted without mercy (don't bother to argue with them that digression is the soul of debate).

Probably the least hostile environment is a blog site like this, because it's where no one ever really reads anyone else's entries anyway. Come on, admit it - you got this far but what you're [i]really[/i] thinking is: "Wonder how many hits my blog has got while I've been reading..."

I have said it before and I will say it again. The truth about life is that it is a solitary experience, however you choose to imagine it otherwise. All the supposed 'relationships' and 'communities' along the way are literally figments of the imagination. Here I sit, talking to myself.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

I am going to give up smoking cigarettes and it is going to be easy. I am going to give up smoking cigarettes and it is going to be easy. I am going to give up smoking cigarettes and it is going to be easy.

I am going to give up smoking cigarettes and it is going to be easy.

That's what a book I've bought promises me anyway. I wonder if I'm the suggestible sort?

I had a good go at giving up smoking cigarettes yesterday. I stubbed one out at around midday and lasted for 7 hours before I couldn't stand it any longer. Only other smokers will know what I went through. The peculiar kind of thirst for nicotine that permeates your entire body. The defiant pleasure of lighting up again.

I waited another 5 hours after that before I had another cigarette. I had some vodkas as well, and more cigarettes with each drink. When I went to bed at 3:30 a.m. I was very tired and more than a little drunk. I didn't go to work today. I got out of bed at quarter to 1 in the afternoon. That's weekend behaviour from me.

I don't like being off work sick, even when I am really sick. I imagine them all there at the office, my colleagues, snowed under with work, looking at each other, and they're all either thinking or saying: "Lord Strange is dishonest. Lord Strange is not a nice man. Lord Strange has abandoned us."

While it is true that I am dishonest, that I am not a nice man, and that I am fond of abandoning people, I don't want other people to catch onto me. Or at least if they do catch onto me, I don't want to furnish them with an 'open goal' they can use to kick me with. What a mixed metaphor there - so mixed, it might not even be a metaphor.

If I get to sleep early tonight, I'll get up at 6 in the morning and go to work. It's the least I can do.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

I called a taxi and went to see a doctor about my palpitations at 1:00 a.m. last night. I didn't want anyone coming to me. There is a stigma about illness. There is a greater stigma about needing to have emergency visitors at your house in the middle of the night. I was offered the option of the mountain going to Mohammed as it were. And rather than go to the hospital right on the other side of the city, I chose to attend a 24-hour clinic in town.

The taxi driver didn't ask any questions. He picked me up, waited while I used a cashpoint machine, dropped me off outside the clinic, and drove away. I walked up to the clinic door: it was locked and bolted. Only the light on inside told me I was at the right place. Next to the door there was a button. I pressed it. "Yes?" said a woman's voice, not unfriendly, just cautious. It was 1 a.m. after all. Bending down to put my mouth next to the loudspeaker, I said my name. They were expecting me and I was buzzed in.

The doctor saw me straightaway in his large, well-lit surgery. If your TV stops working and you call in a repairman, chances are your TV will be working just fine when he arrives. Same with me and my palpitations. The doctor pressed a stethoscope around my torso for a couple of minutes and said everything was fine. He took my blood pressure and said everything was fine.

"See your doctor in the morning," he said.

"I won't be able to get an appointment," I said.

"Tell them what's wrong with you," he said, "and that you were here tonight. You'll be seen."

"Thank-you, doctor," I said.

On my way out I thought of asking the woman receptionist if it would be all right for me to sit on a chair in a corner while a taxi came for me. I didn't ask though. It didn't seem right. So I went outside where the night had turned freezing and it was trying to rain. I lit a cigarette and inhaled. The taxi arrived and I was back at home ten minutes later. I hadn't been gone an hour in all. The taxis had cost me £16:00.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

I called the National Health Service helpline about my palpitations and the nice Scottish nurse (shouldn't all nurses be Scottish or Irish?) said: "Call your emergency doctor."

I didn't want to hear that.

Now (if I take her advice, which I will) I must instigate the awakening of my doctor from his presumably happy sleep. He will either call me up to talk about my palpitations or even come to my house with his trusty stethoscope. It is nearly 1:00 a.m. He is not going to be happy. If I were him, I would kill me.

Friends, this may be goodbye.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

Palpitations all day. Every so often there's a flutter inside my ribcage as my heart seems to skip a beat. Probably a result of too much caffeine, alcohol, nicotine and so on. Of course palpitations are perfectly normal - everyone gets them occasionally. It's just a shame that I'm a hypochondriac. All day I have expected to die at any moment. What guarantee is there that your heart won't just stop? There isn't one.

I told a few people at work about the palpitations. If I'm still having them in the morning I'm going to the doctor's, I said. (Making sure my manager was in earshot.) They looked right through me and said: 'Hmm'. Nobody really cares how you are. But neither do you really care how other people are. If somebody says to you that they feel unwell, you look right through them and you say: 'Hmm'.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

Yes it's a bland, even 'boring' header, but once I saw it I couldn't resist having it. The building on the right looks like the office where I work - where I must show up tomorrow on time, sit at a desk for 8 hours, not take too many breaks, laugh at people's lame gags that I've heard a hundred times already, and then leave at the end of my shift in a state of mental and physical exhaustion. I'm currently focused upon [i]getting out[/i] in some way, at least before my useful life is over. So every time I log-in my blog, I'll be reminded of that.

I have this headache. Dull headache around the temple. It's due to too many computer hours this weekend. And the bottle of vodka I'm working my way through, and the cigarettes, and the late nights. Do you know what I would like? To be free of all superfluous needs. To live with only the needs for food, clothing, and shelter. One day very soon I will stop drinking and smoking. One day very soon. Yes. Very soon.

I am constantly teetering on the brink of outright insanity, I think. Not the ironic, cool, postmodern type of 'insanity' - i.e. [i]being crayyyyyzy, man[/i] - but the full-on, cowering and gibbering sort. The sort that makes you drool, and fight against invisible enemies, and believe the Swiss are controlling your neighbours.

Earlier I was sitting watching television when I suddenly perceived that reality is impossible. I can't put it any better than that. Reality, existence, the physical universe - it's [i]impossible[/i]. There is no way it can exist. It doesn't exist. Perhaps this is true nihilism. To perceive (rather than believe) that nothing at all exists.

I know, I know. Zen and related philosophies would agree that reality has no form, is always in a state of flux, and therefore cannot be held to 'exist' as such. But still. To actually [i]see[/i] what that would mean to oneself as a so-called individual in a so-called world - well, I had myself a little episode there.

I bit the back of my hand and walked around for a while. Soon, I was back to normal. I was Lord Strange again (or whatever the hell my real name is), and I was thinking about what time I would catch the bus to work tomorrow. I'll be catching it at 10:45. I'm on the late shift. I'll stop off at Sainsbury's and get myself a sandwich to eat at lunchtime.

I experience these episodes frequently - and I always resist them. I always fight against the [i]seeing[/i]. I wonder: what would happen to me if I didn't fight them? I don't know. I don't know.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

Well, [i]that[/i] backfired. I wrote my last blog specifically to get to 50 points, so I could grab a header at the tbuck store. Have a look down below - I was quite brazen, even cocky, about it. Guess what happened - no 5 tbucks. I still languish on 46. Things have got to change....

And somebody posted a comment saying I could get a header done for free. They also queried my competence with graphics. Which is fair comment, I suppose. I'm not a computer whiz-kid (just using that term [i]dates[/i] me) and wouldn't claim to be. As for getting someone to do my header for free, nah. I don't know why but it would just feel wrong. I'm not the trusting kind, and in any case I don't really go in for adornments, decorations and the rest of it. I like to look at others' work, and I admire and respect people's efforts. Some of the blog pages I've looked at are amazingly rich in details, both small and large. I just don't go in for it myself.

Today I received another Viagra spam e-mail. (Cf. strangereality8, below.)

It said: 'You have ordered $458 worth of Viagra pills using a debit card. Your shipping order contained the wrong address. Please click on the link to provide your correct address!'

Of course I'm wise to what it was all about. I didn't 'click here' - I'm not a [i]total[/i] noOb. But still... the bloody cheek! I underwent a brief paranoid interlude - how to explain it if a truckload of Viagra pulled up outside the door? No doubt the truck would have VIAGRA FOR LORD STRANGE emblazoned on its sides. And everybody I've ever known would be walking past at that exact moment. And the situation would only be made worse by my sickly grimaces and protestations along the lines of: 'No, no, ahahaha, it's all a silly mistake, strangereality8 explains it all...'

I'm off now to collect my 5 tbucks. Or there'll be trouble.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

See strangereality8 below for the most amusing story in the world ever.

I have never before made two blogs on the same day. The main reason I did this was to get to 50 points so that I can add a header. I'll do that and then come back and make strangereality10 more interesting. For the life of me I can't think of anything to write now that would mask my naked ambition to get to 50 blog points. I thirst, I [i]yearn[/i], for 50 blog points. I am tired of seeing the blank inane space at the top there. I don't even know how it got blank. I'm sure that when I started this thing it said StrangeReality and LordStrange at the top. And somehow I buggered that up. Back in a while....

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

Strewth, as they say. March gales. What's that all about then? The fierce gusts nearly taking me off my feet. Garden fence blowing down in the wind. Rocking and swaying at first and then [i]crack[/i]. Leaning over like a Friday night drunk considering his options. Mum gets on the phone to older brother. Come quickly and mend the fence! No one thinks to ask me. I don't do that kind of thing. Good fences make good neighbours.

The fence was put back up. A temporary fix. It's generally agreed that a brand-new fence is required. That the fence was on its last legs anyway. In a figure of speech, even a fence can have legs.

Then over the past few minutes, the wind died away.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

Trust me, you must read on. What I am about to tell you is quite amusing.

The last time I had a girlfriend was.... an embarrassing number of years ago. So long, in fact, that over the intervening years I have gradually relapsed (or progressed?) into being a very solitary person.

Anyone who has endured (or enjoyed?) a prolonged period of celibacy must acknowledge the truth of the old adage: [i]If you don't use it, you lose it[/i]. What I'm coyly leading up to is the fact that I have virtually no sex drive lately. This, coupled with my inherent shyness and a tendency to over-intellectualise reality, means that by necessity I have come to terms with things and I just do not have sex. With anyone.

Now wait till you hear what's been happening in the last few weeks.

My best mate from school was back in town and we met up for a drink. He's been married for two years and has already had all the sex under the sun. I mentioned, in passing, my affliction - i.e. the fact that I just can't be bothered lately. (It's that kind of friendship.)

He was concerned: perhaps my long-ago breakup with Ellen was still affecting me in ways that I wasn't considering. I swiftly disabused him of this notion. (Although I twitched and sobbed whilst doing so. Ellen, how could you...)

Go and see someone, my friend urged me. Get some counselling (he's lived in America). Or at least see a [i]doctor[/i]....

I said I'd think about it. We re-racked the table for another pool game, got more beers in... Mates are the best.

I didn't go to see a doctor. To tell you the truth, I really don't care about not having a girlfriend or, like most of my peers, a wife. I have been there, done that. I have other interests to pursue. One day I will discover the meaning of life.

I finally got my computer at home online in mid-February. After a few days of basically messing around, in an idle moment I typed into a certain well-known search engine these words: LOW SEX DRIVE.

I had some curiosity at the time about whether I might have some or other well-known syndrome. You have to keep your options open.

The Internet-savvy among you will already be rolling your eyes, and chuckling, at the inevitability of what happened next. Of what is still happening.

For a month now, I have received at least three spam e-mails per day advertising different kinds of Viagra. They just started turning up in my MSN Inbox. At first I felt dismay that my Internet transactions were so open to abuse. And I felt kind of disgruntled. "For God's sake," I wanted to tell the senders, "I asked that search engine about [i]low sex drive [/i], I didn't say I couldn't get it up!"

Then I felt indifference. Now I just feel amused. Every day I go and check my mails with a kind of sad smirk on my face. "Where's today's Viagra spam!?" And every day they're there. Without fail.

And, no. I haven't followed up on any of the 'generous and unheard-of offers'. No doubt this blog will cause the Viagra spamming to go into overdrive. I say: bring it on. Like every individual, I am a world careening through a multiverse. Nothing can be more absurd than that.

I work in a call centre. As I say at work at the end of every call: "Thank-you for your time."

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

It doesn't matter where I put the ashtray. If I put it on the bed, the smoke from my cigarette blows across the computer screen. If I put it on the desk on the other side of the computer, the smoke from my cigarette blows across the computer screen. It doesn't matter if the window is open or if the window is closed; if the door is ajar or if the door is shut. The smoke from my cigarette blows across the computer screen.

What effect is the cigarette smoke having? In the bowels of my machine where the nicotine-tainted air is pulled in and blown back out, what effect is the cigarette smoke having?

It does worry me so.

Today was good: back on the early shift at work, so I got out of there at 4 pm. Downside was getting up at 6 this morning. I nearly missed the bus. I went to a cashpoint with seconds remaining before it left. I put in my card and tapped the number. What service do I require? I required CASH, NO RECEIPT. What did I press? In my rush I pressed PRINTED BALANCE... The machine paused and whirred. I stamped impatiently. Eventually I was returned to the menu - CASH, NO RECEIPT. After a few seconds my cash was disgorged. I took it and then waited for a few seconds - as everyone who uses cashpoint machines waits - in case the machine did something unexpected, like spew out all the rest of my bank account once my back was turned. It didn't, and I hurried away. I stepped onto the bus and it pulled away immediately with me standing at the front, swaying and groping my pockets, looking for my pass. I found it and showed it to the driver, who didn't even look. He just stared ahead at the road and nodded once in a surly manner.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

Fish cakes, chips, and beans. That's what I ate for lunch today at work. Fish cakes, chips, and beans. Life is so strange. You couldn't make it up.

I seem to be talking a lot about the weather. About how light it is getting in the mornings and evenings. This is not like me at all: usually I never talk about the weather. What has made me talk about it is only the time of year. It is a special time of year in the northern hemisphere.

Nothing at all of interest happened today. I thought no deep thoughts. Nobody within my earshot said anything interesting or amusing or quirky. No doubt today was interesting but I just didn't notice. I was a machine today. I forgot to even imagine that I possessed a free mind.

Just one thing: the Big Boss at work, the uber-Boss, the manager of all the managers, stopped by my desk. He seemed to have come especially to see me. He spent a few minutes asking me questions about how the new computer system is bedding down. I told him the truth (it's not going well) but I took care to put a positive spin on things. They love that, these business types: positive thinking, the can-do spirit, etc. etc.

Sometimes I wonder what my self of 10 years ago would make of me today. He would despise me. He would tell me that I have wasted, and am wasting, my life. Back then I wanted to go to Paris and write novels in an attic. Of course I could still do that. But I don't want to, not anymore. It seems that what I want to do now is to suck up to the Top Manager in the faint hope that I'll get a move out of the call centre.

10 years ago I told myself: "10 years from now I will have realised my dreams or I will be dead."

I guess I'm dead.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

Great news today. My manager at work has confirmed my week's holiday next month. Due to the current workload we're all suffering, my request was in doubt. I was braced for disappointment. So it was a pleasant surprise to get an e-mail today saying: Your holiday request for April has been allowed. The word that best describes my subsequent mood is [i]exultant[/i].

I'm easily pleased.

So expect more and better blogs in the first full week of April. Which also happens to be Easter week.

I might say something here about the film The Passion Of The Christ. But I really don't have an opinion. Religion is a bottomless mystery that has little to do with the human race cosidered as an historical organism, and everything to do with the ontological fact of one's own individuality. Mel Gibson is a fool who doesn't know anything about religion. I don't know anything about religion. The difference between us (one of many, it must be said) is: I know it. Call it arrogant. Call it strange.

Finished work at 8:00 this evening. The accursed late shift. You get a good lie-in in the morning but there's little time to do anything when you get home. I stopped at the chip shop and odered sausage and chips. As he wrapped it all up for me, the man behind the counter [i]touched my food with his fingers[/i]. "See you later, bud," he said as he handed them to me. I thanked him and left the premises...

Caught most of a TV programme after my dinner: Brat Camp it was called. An entertaining hour following a group of English teenagers (the troubled type) on a character-improving hike across American vistas. Lord Strange must confess that the only kind of TV he bothers with these days is so-called 'reality TV'. It fits the bill perfectly: it entertains, and it is a great way to unwind after a day at the office. Nothing more can be asked of television. When Lord Strange wishes to be culturally enriched, he picks up a book.

The weather is definitely on the change. This afternoon it was almost springlike. During my lunchbreak I made my way as ever outside to the smokers' area. It's an old bikeshed set aside for our use. All winter long I have huddled and shivered beneath the old corrugated iron roof. Today I stepped out into the weak warmth of a March sun. In the light of pure, unadulterated reality we are all free.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

I have 3 alarm clocks because I dislike getting up in the morning. This morning I was fully awake after the first one went off. I got out of bed straight away and walked across the room and switched off the alarm clock. Then I walked to the other side of the room and deactivated the two that were due to go off in, respectively, one and two minutes' time. I [i]really[/i] don't like getting up in the morning.

Today was the first day since October that it was already daylight when I got up. In the kitchen I shivered and turned on the gas oven for some warmth. I try to leave the central heating on 17 degrees overnight so it'll be warm for me as I get ready to go to work. But there are Others in the house: they get up at least once a night to go to the toilet and they turn the central heating right back down again. I have no opinion on this.

I made tea and smoked a cigarette in front of breakfast TV. I watched the news for a few minutes. It amazed me how the news is essentially the same every day: the same kinds of events recur again and again. Their principal actors even repeat the same lines. The news could be placed on a repeating 10-year loop and few people would really notice. (All right, that's not accurate - everybody would notice. But that is not the point.)

I caught the bus into town. During the journey I read a few pages of a book. I would have read more but I have always been a slow public reader. I sense people's glances and stares. It is not the done thing, to read in public.

When I got off the bus in town the sun was a hand's-breadth above the horizon. It hung over the Cathedral's shoulder, shining away.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

Last week a friend at work told me the sickest joke I have ever heard. Sick humour is a human tradition: after every big disaster people go around telling sick jokes. The very first sick joke may have been something like -

ANCIENT EUROPEAN #1: How many citizens of Pompeii can you get on the back of a cart?

ANCIENT EUROPEAN #2: I don't know. How many?

ANCIENT EUROPEAN #1: All of them, if you've got a shovel....

That kind of thing. You know what I mean: everybody tells them.

And yet this joke that I was told last week was a breed apart - it was [i]a genuinely sick joke [/i] that did not at first make me laugh. The laughter came a few seconds afterward, as a kind of startled yelp. I went on to tell the joke to several other people. Their reaction was identical to mine. "That is the [i]sickest[/i] joke in the world," they said.

Later in the week, the friend who had told me the joke stopped by to ask me to stop spreading the joke. "It could really upset some people," he warned. "If you do tell it, don't mention my name."

I had to agree.

I won't repeat the joke here - it'd probably get me banned. And with good reason. It's a joke that would strike at the very heart of anybody who has ever been affected by its central subject matter. No, it's not about any so-called 'current events', nothing to do with Madrid or anything. Those kinds of jokes are sick jokes on a much lower level than the [i]sickest joke in the world[/i].

Which will remain my secret.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

You would never know that it had snowed yesterday. The sky is clear blue and the sun is high. The air is mild. Spring is about to make its annual surprise entrance.

Because I stayed up until 3 a.m. on the computer and I drank as much vodka as I wanted to (my set Friday night routine), I didnt wake up until nearly 1 o'clock this afternoon. My sister was visiting. She had brought her little daughter. I lay awake in bed for a while, listening to the noises downstairs. When I heard the commotion of people leaving and I knew I had the house to myself, I got up.

Every day I wake up with nothing to tell me that I am who I think I am. I have my memory of being Lord Strange 'yesterday' and all the days before that. I have pieces of paper with my image and the words 'Lord Strange' on them. Other than that, nothing. The esoterists tell us that we are not who/what we believe ourselves to be. That we are certainly not who other people believe us to be.

http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/" title="http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/" target="_blank"http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/quotes/harding.html

The link above will say more than I can. It's Saturday afternoon here - just starting to get dark.

Welcome to reality. Within 'reality' all kinds of things exist. The following is a random selection from reality.

My desk is positioned so that my back is to all the office managers. I suspect them of choosing this position for me deliberately. They want to create paranoia and destroy my mind. I will [b]not[/b] insert a smiley emoticon here to show that I am only joking. I am not only joking. Or am I...?

Why is it so terrible, to be made to sit with your back to those who have authority over you? Because they can see what things you are up to at times when you are up to things that you do not want them to see. Of course.

Take this afternoon for instance. Lord Strange was sitting at his desk - but what am I saying? I am Lord Strange! Lord Strange should not be talking about himself in the 3rd person....

I was sitting at my desk busy with some work. The office has installed a new computer system that keeps crashing. This generates loads of extra work. The air-conditioned village that is my office is currently about 400% busier than it was a month ago. So everybody is very busy all the time. I, Lord Strange, am very busy all the time.

I'll say now what it is that I actually [i]do[/i], and so get it over with: I work in a [i]call centre[/i]. Yes, I work in a [i]call centre[/i]. My italics, mine!

What could be more fitting, more Orwellian (or Huxleyan if you prefer) than that I should be working in a call centre at this point in the human story? There is no profession more postmodern, more despised, in all the world. We who wear the sponge-eared headsets are mercenary scum. Every right-thinking person knows that.

(Here's an idea: why don't all of us who work in call centres - and you know who you are - start our own blogsite, our own country, our own world...)

Back at the point: sometime this afternoon, in the midst of the call centre maelstrom, as I looked out of the window at the snow fluttering down onto the carpark from a slate-grey sky, I thought "To hell with 'em", and I opened up my current favourite workplace game - Pingu. In this game your avatar is a troll-type creature who must bat Pingu the Penguin across the frozen tundra and try to rack up as much yardage as possible. My record so far is 957 yards. One of my colleagues, Paul, who knows everything about Doctor Who and smells of body odour, claims to have reached 1100 yards. Which I frankly disbelieve. Nevertheless, I am determined to one day beat his (fictitious) record...

So I was a few hits into Pingu and ill-humouredly watching the closing bounces of a 750-hit (mediocre in Pingu terms), when I sensed a presence at my shoulder.

"Lord Strange," said a voice above me.
I looked around: there was the regional manager, bending down, peering at my screen.
"Gaaah....," said Lord Strange.

No, I didn't hit Alt-Tab in time. I got a friendly but firm telling-off. As I left the office it was still snowing, although the day's earlier fall had melted into slush on the pavement. I stomped up and down as I waited for the bus home. I lit a cigarette and huffed and blowed to try and make myself warm. The bus came and I stepped on my cigarette. I got onto the bus and went home.