StrangeReality

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

Here's a nugget of information about what I do for a living. Although I work in a call centre, I am not 'on the phones' as such. When I started work at, erm, 'XYZ Incorporated', I was 'on the phones' for 3 months and I have to say that I didn't mind it. In fact, I [i]enjoyed[/i] it. The days passed quickly, I enjoyed a good rapport with the callers, and I had a great time mixing with all the other ne'er-do-wells who traditionally flock to call centre employment. Of course back then I was myself a ne'er-do-well, having managed to evade work for several years. I only took the job because the social security people threatened to come round and kick my head in if I didn't. (And stop my unemployment benefits as well.)

Anyway: three months into the job one of the managers took me aside and asked me if I was interested in becoming a 'duty manager'. Call centre duty managers are the people you will generally end up speaking to if you go crazy on the phone and demand to speak to a manager. Thus the real, actual, bona fide [i]managers[/i] are safe from having to get their hands dirty, you see.

Duty managers deal with the worst of the worst, customers who have 'gone nuclear' and need some special love and attention. I took the job, of course - and the payrise, thank-you very much. I have done it ever since, for two years and counting. The most common thing I say is: "Good morning/afternoon/evening , my name's [Lord Strange], I'm the duty manager at XYZ Incorporated, how can I help you?" (Do you see? The customer hears the phrase 'duty manager' and just thinks: [i]manager![/i], ignoring the fact that I am not a [i]manager[/i].)

On any working day I average 5 manager callbacks (or, if the customer won't wait to be called back, [i]call takeovers[/i] from the floor). My job is to pacify the customer, express sympathy, acknowledge any shoddy customer service, and 'take ownership' of the problem. This means that I tell the customer I will investigate and get back to them shortly. I must then telephone various other departments within the company and get the customer moved to the front of their queues. This can take a while, and frequently it's impossible to do. XYZ Incorporated is a huge company, on the top 50 at London's stock exchange (no more clues), and there are thousands of employees working in dozens of locations. Whatever result I get for the customer, positive or negative, I 'own' the customer until the problem is resolved. I have my own direct freephone number which I issue to them. What this means is that I have old customers calling me up all the time, amidst all the new ones that come in every day.

It can be stressful. Oh yes.

I would recount some anecdotes here about 'great manager callbacks what I have done' - but I've just noticed that I am sitting on my chair at home, in front of my PC (supplied for £10 a month by the company - aah, the perks), and I'm [i]thinking about work[/i].

In mid-May I have two whole weeks' holiday.

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

Day off work today. This coming Saturday is the one-in-five that I must work, so today's my day off in lieu. Most people at work go crazy when they see that they're down on the rota to work a Saturday. It's because their Friday night out is effectively cancelled. Some of the swap deals that go on are very intricate, and can end up involving the donation of cash as an incentive. Me, I don't mind. I always do my Saturday, and relish my day off in the week. I'm seen as something of a freak. But the simple truth is that I rarely have anything to do on Friday nights. So it's no problem.

Today I haven't done much. I got up at just after midday. The fine weather of last weekend is definitely gone: it's chilly and wet outside. A typical spring day in England. I tried to make a toasted sausage sandwich for breakfast (rock and [i]roll[/i]...) but as I was buttering one of the slices of toast I dropped it on the floor. Butter-side down, of course.

Recently there was a scientific study done about this phenomenon. It's so widely believed that toast always falls butter-side down that some boffins somewhere could stand it no longer and they took the debate into a laboratory. The result? Presumably after many entertaining weeks of buttering slices of toast and dropping them, they announced to a shocked nation that the chances are always [i]only 50-50[/i] that the toast will fall butter-side down. There was a frenzied debate in the media about the trustworthiness of this result. Some letters to newspaper editors asked tough questions about the scientific team: who financed the experiment? what controls were in place? were there any independent observers? That kind of thing. After a while the fuss abated. People stopped talking about it. Nothing more was ever heard about the mysterious toast-dropping scientists.

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

Every time I'm on a late shift at work I permit myself a luxury item: a taxi home. The office is about a mile out of the city and in the evenings it used to take me an age to get home by public transport. Let's say I finish at 8:00. The staff minibus drops me in town at 8:20 or so. Then I must wait for a public bus that turns up (if it turns up at all) at 8:40. By the time I get home it's 9:00 or later - an hour after I finished work. It's not good enough for me: by the time I've changed clothes and eaten, the time's getting on for 10:00. So I have acquired the habit of getting a taxi home.

When I leave the office at 8:00 there it is, parked outside reception, its driver staring idly into space with his forefinger tapping the steering wheel. In I get. "Are you Lord Strange?" the driver always says, suspiciously. "I am," I say gently, and proffer my ID badge for inspection. He nods, and we set off. And I'm home by 8:15.

Tonight, mercifully, my driver was that rarest of creatures: [i]the totally silent taxi driver[/i]. I'm used to fielding all kinds of comments about the weather, and about how busy I've been today, and what do I actually [i]do[/i] at that place anyway? After 8 hours spent talking to customers on the phone and to my colleagues face-to-face, another spell of voice-work is never welcome. I endure most of my taxis home in ill humour, but tonight was exceptional.

The driver was the meek, black-bearded, bespectacled type who is probably building a nuclear bomb in his garden shed, but he was totally quiet for the entire journey. So he's all right by me. When I climbed into the back he asked me who I was and where I was going. And that was all.

Off we sped. Down the winding country road that leads to the city. Beneath the railway bridge and into the outlying housing estates. Round the corner and onto the motorway. The rain started about now, and I braced myself: surely he would pass some kind of remark? The weekend, after all, had been so sunny and warm. And now here was this rain, presenting a kind of open goal for taxi drivers... I was ready to chuckle mildly and riposte with a general comment about the English weather. But no: not a sound came from him. If I hadn't already heard him speak, I would have assumed he was a mute. On we drove. The exit to my area of the city came and then the entrance to my road was in sight and then I was stepping out of the taxi in front of my own house. The greatest taxi driver in the world looked at me almost mournfully. In a soft, fragile tone of voice he said: "That'll be eight pounds, please."

I paid the fare with real gratitude and said: "Have a good night." He didn't answer. I slammed the taxi door shut and walked up to my house door. The rain was coming down quite heavily. By the time I had got out my keys and unlocked the door, I was soaked.

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

The warmer weather has made people go berserk, it seems to me. The mercury is barely above 20 degrees Celsius (70ish Farenheit). Yet there are people walking past outside, at this very moment, with hardly any clothes on. It's a phenomenon that I notice every year. Suddenly all the windows of every house are flung wide open and ice cream freezers are emptied. At the moment I'm listening to the radio commentary of a football match (Manchester United vs Liverpool: currently 0-0) and the commentators are talking about the 'clear blue skies' and the 'glorious April sun' and the crowd's 'fine summer humour' more than they are talking about the game. It's as though the change of a season takes everybody - takes me - by surprise every year. Come the winter it'll be exactly the same. The nights will draw in and people will react as if nature is playing a capricious trick upon them. Winter overcoats will be broken out of wardrobes in the first week of September, at the slightest chill.

On this 'sweltering day' (those radio commentators again) I walked up to the shops. Once again last night I overdid my Friday night vodka. Got to bed around 4 a.m.: another 22-hour Friday. So my head felt thick and my breathing was a little laboured. The girl on the checkout at the supermarket had joined in the spirit of the day. She had tied the tails of her work blouse in a bow across the middle of her stomach. The effect of this was to reveal, just to the right of her navel, a tattoo of a bird: whether it was a seagull or a dove or a nightingale or whatever, I couldn't say. There was the bird-tattoo, perched cheekily on the checkout girl's plump flesh. I reached the front and asked for my cigarettes. The shelf behind her was empty: she would have to open a fresh carton. She turned, stooped, rummaged in a drawer. The back of her tied-up blouse rode halfway up her spine. Revealing yet another tattoo. This tattoo was located in the so-called 'small' of her back. It was a big one as well: some kind of pseudo-Celtic rune/Chinese ideogram/Egyptian hieroglyph was splashed out in all its glory on this shop girl's back. I watched the tattoo ripple and bulge as its owner moved about, searching for the cigarettes. She found them and straightened up, turned, and handed me a packet. Then, irritatingly, she wasted half a minute of mine and everybody else's time as she placed the rest of the carton's contents onto the shelf. She arranged them into a neat row. When she was satisfied, she took my money and I left. I walked home in the sunshine. It reflected from the pavements and dazzled me. Several neighbours were out mowing their lawns. I sniffed, then I sneezed.

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

Spring finally turned up. All the trees noticeably green. The sunshine, of course, and the warmth. At lunchtime lots of people went all [i]al fresco[/i] with their sandwiches and cans of Coke. Come and sit outside with us, they invited me. I haughtily declined: I don't sit outdoors, ever. The sun dazzles. I squint everywhere. I was like it even at school. The teachers occasionally told everyone to pick up their books and take ourselves to work outside. Whether you liked it or not. NOT, in my case (although all the other kids were crazy for the idea). The sun glared from the whiteness of the page. I could hardly focus on the text. I got headaches quickly. So today I went to the restaurant and sat on my own at a table and read the newspaper. With my back to the window.

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

Took a half day's holiday from work today. No real reason: I just felt like it. I worked as normal all morning, with one-and-a-half eyes on the clock. 12:00 came and I all but made a me-shaped hole in the window... Ken (the office minibus driver) reared back in surprise. "What are you doing out early?" I told him that I had a half day and he [i]chuckled[/i] and said: "It's all right for some!" I [i]chuckled[/i] back at him, through gritted teeth. I truly hate amiable banter.

So I got home at 12:30. I got changed out of my workclothes - shoes, trousers, shirt (one of the perks of my job: no tie) - and made something to eat. I have a DVD from the library that I keep meaning to watch: [i]Pirates Of The Caribbean[/i]. But I felt that spending 2 hours or more of my afternoon off in watching a film would be a waste of the precious time. This half day's holiday today is half a day that I won't have later in the year. I lay on the bed, wondering what to do with it. I had better do something [i]weighty[/i], something [i]worthwhile[/i]: otherwise my sacrifice was in vain. I sat up and looked at my bookshelf. I have too many books and I hardly have time to read them. I couldn't face a book.

I eyed my bottle of vodka, speculatively. Hmmm... But no: it was way too early to start drinking. I tried drinking all day once, and had to go to bed after an hour or two. I don't know how alcoholics handle it.

I lay back down and started daydreaming. I was looking up out of the window, at the sky. Projected against the blue-and-white sky I could see the bacteria that live on the surface of the eyeballs - [i]ocular infusoria[/i] they're called. Most of them were just tiny dots but others were long and curved like a scimitar blade. For a long while I watched them all moving about in sync with my heartbeat. Then I sat up and looked at the clock: it was after 14:00. I walked across the room, powered up the computer, and after a few minutes I started to type: [i]Took a half day's holiday from work today...[/i]

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

One day over the past few weeks I notched up my 34th year on the planet. I'll coyly [i]not[/i] say exactly which day it was. It's never wise to post personal details on the Internet. Your exact birthdate is about as personal as details get. I don't know precisely [i]what[/i] use my birthdate would be to some nefarious no-good-doer -assassins and terrorists running around with passports in my name is about the worst I can imagine.

So I turned 34. One of the first people to wish me a happy birthday was my sister in America. She's a lot older than me and emigrated about 20 years ago. Where she lives it's about 7 hours behind the time here on the Greenwich meridian, a fact which my scatty sister has singularly failed to grasp in all these years, so when the phone rang at 1 o'clock in the morning I knew who it had to be.

"Happy birthday!" she said. "I'm not disturbing your dinner am I?"

"No," I said wearily. I had been asleep. "No. It's 1 o'clock a.m. here..."

"Oh. Sorry..."

She had thought the time here was, quote, "about 8 in the evening or something".

Anyway. There was an amusing point that my sister had called up to make. We had a brief chat, and she made her point: hammered it home, in fact. To illustrate her point I have to go back to 1988. She had flown over for a visit to show off her then-infant children, and during the course of her stay it was her birthday.

I was 18 years old then and I will never forget the scene. The family was at another sister's house and we were sitting around talking. I have five sisters and have always had only the haziest idea of how old each of them is. I was 18 at the time, as I have said.

To my sister I said:"So, just how old are you now?"

She said:"34..."

"34? 34!" I said scornfully. I laughed in her face. I jeered her for being 34. It was unimaginable to be 34. It was a [i]disgrace[/i] that my sister was 34.

"Well? So what?" she said, wounded. She had already picked up an American accent. In this new voice she said (portentously): "[i]One day you'll be 34..[/i]."

I snorted: "[i]Yeah... in 2004[/i]...."

Back in 1988 the whole idea of the year 2004 was like the idea of time travel. Something that just seemed impossibly remote and unreal.

"I'll make you remember you said that," said my sister with narrowed gypsy eyes, and in an instant 16 years went by, like a dream of life.

And then the other night she phoned me up at 1 o'clock in the morning and made me remember it.

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

I finally took the plunge. I printed off the first 50 pages of the novel I've been writing, put them into a large brown envelope, added a fawning covering letter, and addressed it all to a friendly-sounding literary agent in London.... It's odd, but on my way to work this morning, when I left the package at the post office, I felt nothing. No sense of achievement, no anticipation. In fact, I did feel something: [i]embarrassment[/i]. Who am I, to inflict upon strangers the results of my shameless scribbling (attention all bloggers! irony alert...)? And statistically I am almost as likely to win the Lottery this weekend as I am to be receiving anything but my own manuscript returned to me [i]post haste [/i].

6 months this novel has taken me. And there is so much counting against it. For a start, it's 'only' 40,000 words long - roughly 130 pages of a printed book with a standard typeface. Publishers won't go for it. I know. But still. One must take the chance.

This isn't the first novel I've written. The first novel I wrote, ten years ago now, was called..... [i]Lord Strange[/i]. It was awful and I destroyed it after dozens of rejection slips. There really was an historical Lord Strange, you know. He was one of the wealthy patrons who financed William Shakespeare's own troupe of players. I came across the name 'Lord Strange' in a biography of the Bard, and the singular oddness of the name stayed with me. (Imagine really [i]being[/i] Lord Strange!) One of the schools of thought about novel titles is that the title ought to convey the [i]flavour[/i] of the novel. [i]Lord Strange[/i] was a strange novel (strange that it could be so irredeemably bad) and so I needed to look no further for a good title. Shame about the novel.

So that's it. I've told myself I'll endure no more than 50 rejections. If it gets to that point, I'll just post the damn thing on the Internet. Fire and forget.

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

On the dreaded late shift at work today. At least it's a lie-in. At 10 o'clock this morning the three alarm clocks went off. I made toast and tea, left the house at 11. A bright but windy day with spits of rain dotting the pavement. [i]Cold[/i], too, in a way I don't ever remember late April being. Perhaps I am at an age now when I will feel chills for progressively greater portions of the years. Come August I'll be breaking out the winter coat. In a few years' time summer for me will consist of a solitary weekend in June. The rest of the year will be all winter and autumn.

While I waited for the bus to the city centre, I was thinking about my Special Project. It's nearly ready - nearly done. It's been a long journey but I hope I'm nearly there. Tomorrow should see a full completion, or at least, a point where the project is out of my hands and it falls to [i]other people[/i] to see it through to the end. I won't say more now because I'm just superstitious like that. Many ancient cultures believed that to name an object was to take away its power. I kind of believe the same thing about this. Until tomorrow!

The place where I work is located a mile or so outside the city. I don't drive a car so I have to catch the company minibus. It runs as a shuttle service from the city centre to the office, and back again, every hour. In town I walked up to the minibus where it was parked outside the Bingo hall. In I get. There is the driver, Ken, a ruddy-cheeked jocular soul with a heart of gold - a stereotype, in other words. He's real, though, is Ken. Also on the minibus were Carl, Sharon, and several others whom I know only on a see-and-nod-to basis. I saw them. We nodded. I sat down.

I had with me a book called [i]Labyrinths[/i], a collection of short stories and articles by the peerless Jorge Luis Borges. If you are into books and you have never read Borges.... well. Try him. I opened the book to my favourite story of his, one I read at least once a month, [i]The Lottery In Babylon[/i]. (Here's a link to it: http://www.hfac.uh.edu/mcl/fa...) At once I was seized by the opening sentence, which never, despite a hundred rereadings, fails to impress: [i]Like all the men of Babylon, I have been proconsul; like all, I have been a slave.[/i]

I read on for a few paragraphs, and the minibus set off. Now. I have written before about me not being a good public reader. I simply cannot be comfortable when I am reading in a public place. It is as though reading, nowadays, is seen as being a kind of [i]anti-activity[/i], which attracts people's attention as [i]anti-moths[/i] to an [i]anti-flame[/i]. My italics.

I became aware that Carl, a few seats away, was twitching in his seat. We're not the best of mates, Carl and me. So I had not felt that it was wrong for me to seemingly ignore Carl and just read my book. Usually when we were on the minibus together we'd sit there staring out of our respective windows, in silence.

After a few minutes of twitching Carl said: "Good weekend?"

I looked at him. "Yeah. You know, quiet. You?"

"Yeah," Carl said. "Went to Manchester."

"Oh? Any good?"

"Wicked," he said.

I turned back to my book. I had reached the sentence: [i]In order to thwart the Company, they all chose jail[/i].

I couldn't read any more. I was staring at the page, reading the same sentence over and over. I knew what was coming -

"What's that you're reading?" said Carl.

I showed him the cover for a few seconds, then went back to my page. After a minute -

"It's payday on Friday," said Carl.

I closed the book and put it in my jacket pocket.

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

Friday night I broke the habit of my recent lifetime and went out on the town with Rick, my oldest friend in the world. By this I mean: he's the friend that I've known the longest. Like me, he's nearing 34. Unlike me, he is married with his own home and a promising career in academia. His missus rarely lets him come back to his old hometown for the weekend. When he does come back, he's usually too busy seeing his family for us to relive our shared youth around the pubs and clubs of the city. Oh, those were the days believe you me. Back then we could drink Jack Daniels all night until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, with nary a next-day hangover to show for it.

Things are different now. He's fat and I'm just starting to go a bit bald. And we cannot drink in the way we used to. Last night we were both reeling after just a few drinks. They weren't even Jack Daniels: we were both on vodka, although I mixed it up with the occasional pint of Guinness.

We met outside The Silver Cross in town at 8 o'clock. Already the pub was jammed with folk who were mainly 10 to 15 years younger than both of us. The customary dance muzak pumped from the wardrobe-sized loudspeakers on the walls. Circa 1990ish, those loudspeakers' more diminutive forebears played Rock and Indie music that made our student souls sing. This was only to be expected (there's this thing called [i]time[/i], apparently, that effects something called [i]change[/i]...). But The Silver Cross was for many years our regular haunt. In that spirit we swaggered in, swaggered to the bar, and swaggered away with our drinks. We looked around us in an amused, condescending fashion: [i]We[/i] own [i]this place, y'hear?![/i]

Ten minutes later we'd had enough and we downed our drinks in a rush. We scuttled off somewhere quieter. The streets were packed with revellers. It was all too much: Rick and I both confessed to a mounting sense of [i]dread[/i]. We sought refuge from the Friday night hurlyburly in The Golden Lion, another former student pub located near the University. Things were more traditional there, as you would expect. Today's students are as addicted to moping over one pint of beer all night as they ever were. Lucky bastards.

We stayed there all night, cheerfully abandoning any idea we had of going for a 'late one' at Jones's, the city's best and cheapest nightclub. We swallowed vodka and cokes one after the other and got drunk. Rick went on about his job, I went on about mine, we talked about women, sport, books, computers, solipsism, television, and the old days. Around us the free spaces steadily filled up so that by 11 o'clock there was no room to move and it took several minutes to slowly elbow your way to the bar. The bar staff wore identical black t-shirts with [i]The Golden Lion[/i] written on them. Next to our table a boisterous group of students with accents from all over the world sang along to 'Brown Eyed Girl'. After a few verses half the pub was joining in.

Rick and I glanced at each other. It was unspoken. We looked down at the table, picked up our drinks, and didn't join in.

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

I went to the library today and spent a few minutes browsing the DVDs. After a minute I saw The Matrix Revolutions on the shelf. Now, last week I spent £17:00 on my own copy. It is one of the worst, most anti-climactic films I have ever seen and I will not be watching it again. I regard my £17:00 to have been wasted. And now here it was in front of me in the library, available to rent for £2:50. I had to laugh.

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

Falling asleep in daylight hours is something I associate with the elderly and the infirm. No matter how tired I am, I resist falling asleep in the afternoon or the early evening. I have a positive obsession with not falling asleep during the day.

This week has been tough. I have struggled to adhere to my principles. I took last week off work and regularly stayed up until 4 or 5 in the morning - getting up the next day at around the 1 or 2 mark. This week I have returned to work. Tuesday and Wednesday weren't too bad: I was on the late shift. But for the past two days, I have been back on the early shift. I had to get up at 6 a.m. yesterday and this morning. The last few hours since I got home from work have been a sore temptation indeed. But I am resisting.

The past couple of days, all people at work have been saying to me is: "You look tired", and (imagine this in a bright tone of voice): "Bet you wish you were still on holiday!" Well. Yes. Of course.

And this afternoon was a particular effort: only a couple of hours to go to the finishing post, the weekend beckoning, two glorious days off.... I sat at my desk peering at my monitor. My eyes wanted me to sleep. I never drink tea or coffee at my desk. But I was about to make an exception. I had checked my pockets for loose change and discovered that I had enough. I stood up to walk to the drinks machine outside.

"Lord Strange," said my manager behind me.

I turned: a surreal sight was in front of me. There stood my manager, pale, awkward, bespectacled Gary. He smiled nervously. With good reason, for he was flanked on both sides by 8 beautiful women. The nearest two women were looking at me. They smiled. It was as refreshing as a spring sunrise. They were from the company's Marketing department and had come to see how the call centre operated. I looked them over again. Blonde hair, real and not, was predominant. Lovely smiles and general attractiveness wasn't lacking either. Yes, they were walking cliches, stereotypes incarnate: the kind of young women hired by a company to go out and be the brand's public face.

But still, you couldn't hold that against them.

They were here to listen in to the calls we took from members of the public and ask us questions about our jobs. Gary asked me if I could host one of them myself, and make sure the others had somebody to sit with.

"I can," I said with gravity. "I can."

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

While I was off work Tara had dyed her hair jet-black in the Goth style. I had some fun calling her 'Morticia' for an hour and then she started to get annoyed so I left her alone. At lunch she came out with me to smokers'. Tara is supposed to have given up smoking and she said: "Just need some fresh air..." We both knew what it was all about. Sure enough after she spent a few minutes hungrily watching my cigarette burn away, she pleaded: "Let me have some." I offered her a complete cigarette but she said: "No, just let me have a few blasts on yours." I handed over my cigarette and she took two quick blasts, pronounced them 'disgusting', and handed back the cigarette. We talked for a while about smoking and giving up smoking. I told her how I had got two thirds through reading a good book about how to give up smoking the easy way, and I had stopped reading because I don't want to give up just yet. Tara looked at me and scowled. "I'll give up soon!" I said with my hands in the air. "I promise..."

As for the rest of the work crew, well, it was as though I had never been away. You return to work after time off and expect everything somehow to be different. But nothing is different. The food in the restaurant is the same. The e-mails you catch up on are dull. People talk about the same things. Nobody has been sacked or gone crazy with a knife.

And to add insult to injury, some people show you a puzzled frown and say: "Were you here last week?"

They hadn't even noticed I was away.

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

With today being a public holiday all the shops are closed except for the local supermarket. It was open today from 10 until 4. The store manager must've understood that they'd better open up today. Otherwise the local citizenry would've battered down the steel shutters and laid waste to the place. This is only partly an exaggeration. I live in an area that government thinktanks would label 'socially and economically deprived'. Which is a polite way to describe the area as generally poor, unemployed, and Lottery-ticket-centric...

Rolled out of bed at 1:30 after another late one last night. My last true late one for a while methinks. Work tomorrow. Work: or the 'toad' as Philip Larkin memorably has it.

Strolled up to the shop along a deserted street. People were in their living rooms watching [i]Back To The Future 2 [/i]or whatever. It used to be a salient feature of public holidays that some or other TV channel would show [i]The Great Escape [/i]or [i]Willy Wonka[/i] or [i]The Towering Inferno[/i]. Not anymore. In recent years there's been a noticeable trend toward showing one or other of the [i]Back To The Future [/i]movies. And then, after that, 'The World's Strongest Man' - 50 minutes watching giant blokes straining to pull a bus to a white line in the distance. Against the clock. That's entertainment.

Just outside the shop there were the customary 5 or so teenagers lounging against the wall. They eyed me as I approached. No eye contact from me. A couple of them swigged lager from a can. I smelled the pungent fumes of cannabis. Inside the supermarket I traipsed around gathering up supplies. Booze and cigarettes, of course. A can of deodorant. ([i]Work[/i] tomorrow...) I added some chocolate to the basket and then took my place at the back of the checkout queue.

Only the one checkout open today. Usually there would be two or three, and queueing time would be slight. I waited patiently. There was a woman at the front. [Warning: faintly sexist remarks approaching.] Do you know what she was doing? The checkout girl had already scanned all the items of shopping for the woman and the amount of money she needed to pay was displayed on the screen for her and everyone in the world to see. But the woman was not getting her purse out. No. With 10 or so people waiting behind her [i]she was slowly and meticulously packing her shopping into bags[/i]. We watched her do this. It took about two minutes: there were eggs and stuff to be careful of. I looked at the checkout girl. [i]Say something to her[/i], I telepathed, [i]tell her to pay up and stand aside[/i]. It didn't work. My telepathic powers must've been at a low ebb today. The woman had finished packing her shopping. Now she brandished her purse. Oh no... she couldn't be... Yes: instead of paying cash, she wanted to pay with a credit card. Cue another minute of general delay and frustration. I'll say this: that woman was not unique. One of the differences between the sexes is their behaviour at the business end of supermarket checkout queues. Men tend to have their money ready and hand it over immediately, and finish packing their shopping afterwards. Women do not do this. Generally.

I have nothing more to say about this.

I got back home and watched [i]The Matrix Revolutions[/i] on DVD. I bought it at the weekend for £17:00. It must be one of the worst films I have ever seen. What a crass error to widen the focus away from Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus. And Agent Smith should've stayed dead after the first film. What a wasted opportunity this trilogy has been. I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but the ending is just awful. I have rarely seen the concept of 'anti-climax' portrayed so expensively.

How would I have ended The Matrix trilogy? Like this: all of the characters discover that they are not in the 'real' world in [i]any[/i] sense. Zion and its environs are as illusory as the matrix. Who and where are they really? They are all actors. They are appearing in a series of films being watched by people in the [i]real[/i] real world.

Hmm. Maybe this illustrates why I'm going to work at a call centre tomorrow. Whereas the Wachowski brothers are using wheelbarrows to take their money to the bank. Whilst laughing all the way, presumably.

How true it is: April is the cruellest month.

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

There are two things on my mind this evening. Two unrelated topics. The first one occurred to me while I was watching television just now.

I say 'watching' television, but that's a grand way of putting it. What I was doing was flicking through the channels, never staying put for long. At one point I flicked straight from a documentary about people with mental illness to a drama featuring a character in a wheelchair. The abrupt juxtaposition stopped me short: I spent a few minutes flicking from one to the other, wondering what it was that had snagged my attention.

Then it hit me: [i]I have never heard of somebody in a wheelchair having a mental illness[/i].

No doubt there are such unlucky souls, who have both a physical disability and a full-on, screaming mental illness like schizophrenia or manic depression. I've just never in my life seen or heard of them. Perhaps there are other things for wheelchair-users to be preoccupied by, and they never begin the long slow journey towards insanity that 'normal' people do. But doesn't some, or even most, mental illness have an organic cause? Then you would think that the disabled would be as vulnerable to mental illness as they are to the common cold. I don't know. Just a thought.

***

The other thing is the dreaded Sunday syndrome. All my life, I have disliked Sundays. Sundays for me are inextricably linked to a feeling of disappointment and dread. That feeling in the pit of the stomach around late afternoon/early evening, when you know that in just a few hours you'll have to stop doing what you want to do and think about getting yourself to bed for school or work the next day.

That today is Easter Sunday and tomorrow a public holiday doesn't in any way lessen the effect of Sunday syndrome for me. Even when I was unemployed for many years and every day was a holiday, Sundays still had the same flavour, the same despondent [i]taste[/i], no matter what.

The curious thing is that I will not feel any Sunday syndrome this time tomorrow, when I'll be thinking about getting to bed in preparation for my return to work on Tuesday. I know from past experience that tomorrow will have a light, buoyant taste to it, and I'll go to bed 'early' without a murmur. Again, I don't know; again, it's just a thought.

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

Went dowstairs today to find that a menu for an Indian restaurant had been pushed through the letterbox. The restaurant, located a few miles away, is open from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. every day including Sundays and public holidays. (So that'll cover today, Easter Sunday, as well then.) But you don't have to physically go to the restaurant to sample the no doubt exquisite food. Orders can be phoned in and if your order is more than £10:00's worth then they'll deliver to your door free of charge.

The menu itself is my favourite kind of Indian restaurant menu: a narrow sheet that folds out and folds out again and then folds out again, concertina-style. Eight or so pages detailing all of the kormas, baltis, tandooris, madrases, tikkas, naans, and poppadums under the sun. In an amusing touch, there is a small separate section featuring 'English' dishes including steak, chips (of course), and - wait for it - [i]omelettes[/i].....

Letter-dropping the area like this is shrewd marketing by the Indian restauranteur: a terrible blank Sunday at the eye of the holiday weekend storm, when jaded and lazy palates alike may prefer to dial out for some food rather than face the cooker or the microwave. If I can't face my frozen lasagne later on then I might just give them a call.

The last Indian restaurant menu that I saw was very different. It was back in the first weeks of January. I went with about twenty people from work to help celebrate Suzanne's 21st birthday. Suzanne is one of my friends at work: we share a sense of humour and a general outlook on life, and neither of us can make sense of the film [i]Donnie Darko[/i]. She block-booked a huge 'last supper'-style table at the Star of India restaurant just outside town. Everybody arrived on time and got drinks at the bar and we all sat down. Easy banter was swapped back and forth. Several people were already drunk and making spectacles of themselves.

Then the menus arrived. And not only were there not enough menus to go around (we had to share, one between two), but they were hideous: giant, laminated, A4-sized menus with a disturbingly small font. So you almost had to squint. But I'm making too much of this menu thing, I think. There's no real reason why.

I ordered vegetable balti with boiled rice. It arrived and I ate it and it was very good. Next to me was Andy who had ordered garlic chicken. As I ate my balti I watched and smelt the garlic chicken being consumed. I wished I had ordered garlic chicken. People ate and drank their way through about £200:00's worth of food and booze. We split the bill between all of us, refusing to allow Suzanne to pay a penny. Everyone sang 'Happy Birthday' to her (except me - embarrassed, I mimed) and she said: "Right. Let's get to the pub." We walked the short distance up the road to the local pub. Snow was falling, the first (and last) snow of the winter. Someone scooped a handful from a car roof, made a snowball and threw it. We got to the pub and had more drinks, and then the talk turned to who was going on to a nightclub and who wasn't. I wasn't.

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

Once upon a time Lord Strange was younger than he is now and he sought romantic attentions from a young lady. Lady Strange (elect) was a strapping Irish lass who worked as a secretary at this city's football (soccer) stadium.

It was 10 years ago. I had met Liz through a mutual college friend.

One night a few months after our mutual friend was off the scene, I was over at Liz's house and we were watching a film on TV. We were also chain-smoking cannabis joints and stoned out of our boxes. (I haven't smoked cannabis in years. Last time I smoked a joint, about 4 years ago, I wound up cowering in a corner of the room, praying for the end of time [i]a la [/i]Meat Loaf.)

At a certain point I decided that I would make my move on Liz. But I am no Lothario - Lord Strange is no Lothario. (Who the hell is/was Lothario? Somebody whose name is a byword for erotic ease ought to be better-known-about, in my opinion.)

For many minutes I wondered how best to broach the subject. From the outset Liz and I had established ourselves as friends and no more. I pondered whether to simply go for the lunge - should I turn to her and seize her head in my hands and suction-grip her lips...? I decided that this was not the best way to proceed. So I set myself to thinking about how I would broach the topic [i]verbally[/i]. I would petition Liz for her charms. Yes, this was definitely the best and only way to win a lady, I thought.

I mulled over many turns of phrase in my mind. I came up with a sentence made of two interchangeable clauses. One was: [i]Would I be making a fool of myself[/i]. The other was: [i]If I tried to kiss you[/i].

I.e., I could either go for: "Liz, if I tried to kiss you would I be making a fool of myself?", or: "Liz, would I be making a fool of myself if I tried to kiss you?" Do you see my dilemma? The deep quandary I was in? And I was stoned. 'Man', the deep thought I put into it...

What I went for was the second option: "Liz, would I be making a fool of myself if I tried to kiss you?" This seemed the better choice due to the key words - [i]kiss you[/i] - falling in the latter part of the sentence. This gave the unsuspecting Liz ample time to digest the opening portion - [i]would I be making a fool of myself [/i]- before she barked her shin on the kissing-you part. It takes a certain frame of mind to think about the strategy behind which clause of a sentence should be placed first.

So I said: "Liz, would I be making a fool of myself if I tried to kiss you?"

Liz tore her bloodshot eyes away from the TV. A long long long long long moment....

Liz said: ".....What?"

I said: "Would I be making a fool of myself if I tried to kiss you?"

She couldn't say "What?" again to buy herself some thinking time, so what she said, after another long long long long long pause was:

"Yes."

I said: "Okay."

We watched TV for another few hours. There was something about being stoned and watching TV: the two things seemed to meld perfectly. At one point Liz put a pizza in the oven. I will never forget that night. And then, sometime around 3 am, I called a taxi and went home.

Liz went back to Ireland a year later and we still keep in touch.

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

I was determined. I was resolute. I was steadfast. (OK, that's enough synonyms of 'determined'.) I would [i]not[/i] be sitting up until 6 a.m. on the computer again, as I have done almost every night this week. I took this week off work specifically to, erm, work on something... a special project of mine... I might tell you about it here, if it all goes well.

And what did I do this week instead of work on my mysterious special project? Stayed up until 6 a.m. every night, pissing about on the Internet. Although last night I did manage to get my Yahoo pool game rating up to [i]exactly[/i] 1500 points: sort of like getting a brown belt in karate.

So the whole going-to-bed-at-6-a.m. thing has meant that my average getting-up time this week has been around the 1 or 2 p.m. mark. I feel guilty, each and every time I open my screen-strained eyes. Outside the sun is shining and the birds are singing. The smell I most associate with spring is the heady aroma of freshly-cut grass, wafting in through an open window. This morning while I slept it seems all of the neighbours decided to mow their lawns. (What a heavy sleeper I must be, to have slept through so much lawnmower pandemonium.)

When I started this I'm sure there was a point.

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

Later this month I will turn 34 years old. For the moment I'm putting a brave face on it, cheerfully telling people that I 'don't care' and 'what are birthdays anyway' and 'age is an abstract concept invented by the ruling classes to enslave us'. I'm quite convincing (us call centre folk have to be convincing) and so I have almost convinced myself. I have almost convinced myself that it doesn't matter.

However... For some reason I'm 'feeling' this one even more than I 'felt' turning 30. I don't mean 'feeling' in the sense of any physical aches and/or pains. There are no overt signs of ageing just yet. I mean the 'feeling' that time is pressing on, and here I am nearly 34, and did I imagine when I was 14 or 24 that getting to 34 would turn out to be [i]something that happened so fast[/i]...?

I once read somewhere that it is quite common for very elderly people to say that their lives seem to have passed in the blink of an eye. That's an awful cliche, the blink of an eye, but I know what they were talking about. And it could be argued that they are literally correct. Think about it. What is your life? If you are objective about it you will notice that the only place you exist in is here, right now. Your memories of the 'past' are in the present moment with you as well. So all of life is this one present moment, ceaselessly in flux, never stable. How can time apply to such a mysterious, chimerical thing as this one moment where everything has happened/is happening/will happen?

All of life is in the blink of an eye.

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

This is a blog about the actor Brian Dennehy.

Some people reading my last entry below might accuse me of being unfair to the character played by Brian Dennehy in the movie [i]First Blood[/i]. Brian plays the sherriff. Below, I said 'the nasty sherriff's deputies' when perhaps I should have said 'the sherriff's nasty deputies'.

That Brian Dennehy, eh. Always popping up in movies where you least expect him. His career as an actor hasn't exactly been stellar, but he does have a certain kind of screen presence that is reassuring to this viewer at least. Gene Hackman is another actor in the category, although a much more accomplished one of course. In recent years poor old Brian seems to have appeared in movies that went straight to video or were made for TV. It's almost guaranteed that you could switch on your TV at around the 11:40 at night mark, and catch Brian at work (here in the UK anyway, where late-night TV schedulers seem to have a Brian Dennehy fetish thing going on).

But getting back to [i]First Blood[/i]: perhaps I was unfair to BD's character. As the sherriff of the town, it is he who unfairly arrests John Rambo for vagrancy and then leaves him in the custody of his nasty deputies. So the sherriff is ultimately responsible for what happens next: torture, mayhem, explosions. However: at various points throughout the movie, the sherriff reveals himself to be an ambiguous character. He is a stern upholder of values and law and order and the rest of that malarkey. But he is also a man with a conscience and an uncomfortable awareness that Rambo has been mistreated by his deputies and misunderstood by himself. The climactic scene where he and Rambo come face-to-face is quite well-conceived, underscoring the sherriff's moral ambivalence and Rambo's deep inner turmoil. (What you think of Sylvester Stallone's 'acting' in this scene is entirely down to personal taste. I think it was good, others might think it laughable.)

If you haven't seen [i]First Blood [/i] then I recommend it. Forget about its crass follow-ups (which cannot be called sequels) - the so-called 'Rambo' films. [i]First Blood[/i] is not like its unillustrious successors. It is an exciting, thoughtful movie. I saw it again a few months ago and it has less violence and more 'wordy' bits than I remember from watching it as a young lad.

And it has Brian Dennehy.

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

Every word of the following is true.

I went for an ECG (electrocardiogram) today following my spell of heart palpitations two weeks ago. That this was only taking place some two weeks after the fact is slightly disturbing to me, but there you go. An ECG isn't important enough to be done by a real doctor at an actual hospital - not in England anyway. No, I had to attend the local medical centre and see the nurse.

She was what you would expect: a friendly, bustling, matronly presence.

"Come in," she said. She beckoned me into the examination room. "Have you got a hairy chest?" she asked me.

"Yes," I said, "very hairy."

I was a little nonplussed: this wasn't how I'd imagined things going.

The nurse said: "You'll have to shave your chest. The sensors won't stick on a hairy chest."

I said:"Oh."

Then I said: "Have you got any clippers?"

The nurse looked up from the cupboard where she was looking for something.

"Any what?" she said.

"Clippers," I said.

"What are they?" asked the nurse.

"You know," I said, and I mimed myself holding a barber's clippers and running it over my chest. I even made the [i]Bzzzzz[/i] noise, in case there was any doubt as to what clippers are.

"No," said the nurse after some time (she had allowed me to stand there for quite a while, [i]Bzzzzz[/i]ing away). "Take your shirt off," she said abruptly. This was getting racy all of a sudden.

I took off my shirt, revealing a bronzed Olympian physique of course, and turned around to find the nurse holding a disposable safety razor under my nose.

"Shave a big patch just [i]here [/i]," she rubbed her fingers against my chest at the base of the sternum. You know, just above where that knobbly bit sticks out. "I'll be back soon," she said gaily and went out of the door.

I was alone and half-naked in a medical examining room and I had to shave my chest within an unspecified timeframe. This was the stuff of my worst nightmares.

I have never even shaved my face 'dry', that is, without using shaving foam of some kind. So I looked down at the long curly chesthairs within the specified shave-zone, and I felt fear.

I was reminded of that scene in the movie [i]First Blood [/i] - the pivotal scene where the nasty sherriff's deputies prepare to shave John Rambo 'dry', and Rambo flips out and sets off on his murderous rampage.

I wasn't about to do the same (headbutting the nurse, vaulting reception to take out the receptionists with a flying kick, racing out onto the street and 'borrowing' a passing motorcycle... aaah, dreams).

But I took a large gulping breath as, tentatively, I applied the blade of the razor to the thinnest-looking section of the doomed chesthair. Gently, I tugged the razor sideways - and an impressive tuft of hair came away in its jaws. And there was no pain. It stung a bit. But there was no pain.

I finished the job within a minute and relaxed on the examination couch with my hands behind my head, peering proudly down at my new pale bald patch. The nurse is taking her time, I thought. I noticed the safety razor on the table where I had put it. It was clogged with hair. Now, the point of a disposable razor is that it gets disposed of. I should have picked it up and dropped it in the bin.

I didn't do this.

[i]What I should do with that razor[/i], I thought, [i]is to clean it up. You don't want the nice kindly nurse to come in and see your disgusting ex-hair cluttering up her workspaces. Do you?[/i]

I stood up and looked around the place for something I could use to clean the razor with. Over by the sink, I found a box of 'wet wipes' which were ideal. I pulled one out and cleaned the razor. Then I took another 'wet wipe' and rubbed my chest where it had been shaved. The stinging suddenly got sharper, so I took a few more 'wet wipes' and held them pressed aginst my chest. After a minute the stinging abated and I lay down on the couch again.

Presently the nurse came back, pushing a wheeled trolley in front of her. The ECG machine was on the trolley. She got busy setting everything up. I was chagrined that she had not inspected and approved my work with the razor.

"Is this enough?" I said a bit rudely, and when she looked around I pointed at my chest.

"That's fine," she said. "It's very [i]red[/i] though isn't it?"

I looked down: indeed, the newly bald patch on my chest was an angry red colour. I waved my hand and said: "Oh, that's nothing. Sensitive skin. I used one of those wipes over there and it seems better now."

"What wipes?" asked the nurse, frowning.

"Those wipes," I pointed at the box next to the sink.

"They're not supposed to be used on your skin," she said aghast. "They're used to disinfect medical equipment..."

"Really? Well."

"Here, quickly," said the nurse and gave me a large ball of cotton wool she had soaked in warm water. I rubbed myself down shamefacedly, as she watched.

And then the ECG machine turned out to be broken. One of its sensors wasn't picking up a signal. The nurse assured me that I [i]do[/i] have a heartbeat and it's [i]definitely[/i] the sensor that's not working. She would get the machine serviced.

And so I must go back next week. I'll shave my chest before I go this time.

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

I saw Dave again. I was entering the supermarket when a voice shouted: "Lord Strange!" My stomach sank. I turned - it was Dave.

Had to spend five minutes with Dave, standing face-to-face just to the side of the supermarket entrance, having one of those aimless, awkward chats between two people who don't see each other often enough to have anything to really talk about.

"You still working?"
"Yeh I'm working."
"Still at XYZ Utilities?"
"Yeh. You?"
"Oh, you know..."
"Yeh."
"Shit isn't it..."
"Yeh. You see the game on TV last night...?"

And so on.

I managed to detach myself from him only after several repetitions of variants on the theme: "Look, I've really got to go now."

I just don't do people. I like people - or at least I don't actively hate people. But I can only ever truly feel alive and real when I am not around other people. I can only feel and savour my existence when I am alone.

But I have to be among people for a good portion of most days. I must go to work, travel on buses, enter shops and so on. I suffer the existential amnesia and claustrophobia that this provokes. Then when I come home and let myself in through the door and go to my room and close the door behind me, the feeling of exquisite relief is sweetly overpowering. The transition from society to solitude is the transition from discomfort to calm. As though I had deliberately worn a pair of tight shoes, just to have the pleasure of taking them off.