The Life of (br)Ian

I realise it's been a very long time since any sort of update has been put in this record of my day-to-day life. I'm not upset, it's just that I've been busy.

Some things that have happened in the last few months:

Moved house
Got promoted
Twisted my ankle

What I really want to talk to you about, and I'm sure you'll listen, is a fairly new phenomenon that has started to happen to me. Here, let me get that for you:

As I have now moved house, my drive to work has increased in length by approximately 400%. It used to take me 5 Earth minutes to get from point A to point B. Now it takes roughly 20 minutes from point A to point B; but I must concede that I have been blessed with little traffic thus far. I can see it getting longer.

As a result of my drive having been lengthened, the incidence rate for mishaps has also increased. I have to deal with not one, not two, not three, but actually three roundabouts on my way into work. Two of these are equipped with traffic lights in order to usher you through. However, one of them does not have any lights whatsoever.

This troublesome little tyke has three roads coming off of it, in a sort of triangular fashion. I have to take the second exit, which is where I start to experience this problem that I have... Whenever I pull out onto this roundabout, someone always pulls across in front of me. It doesn't matter how fast I am travelling, someone will always do it. It's very dangerous, very annoying, and very dangerous. It leads me to believe that perhaps my car is invisible when viewed from a certain angle, such is the frequency of this occurrence.

And it doesn't stop there. It happened to me twice at lunch today, and this was a completely different roundabout altogether. I also recently drove down to Plymouth for a weekend excursion and it happened countless times.

It really gets my goat, you know? I put it down to the fact that no one understands the rules of the road any more. Come on, Government, pull your finger out and send everyone a copy of the highway code, then at least I can have a nice trouble-free sojourn to work every now and then.

I'm just going to go over some of the events of the weekend. Join me, if you will, for a recap.

Friday:

After work I walked to the train station in Reigate and got the train into Redhill. When I got to the station I went to the ticket machine to get my return ticket. It was only 10p more expensive than a single fare, so I figured "Hey, why not?". Why not indeed. I just like to be covered for every eventuality. As it would transpire, I didn't need the return ticket, but it was nice to have that little extra security. You know what I mean? I think you do.

So I got to the ticket machine with 5 minutes to spare. I had checked the train times online before setting off and decided to get the 18:06 train. As it was 18:01 by the time I arrived, I was anxious to get my ticket and cross under the rails (via the subway) to get to platform 2. To my dismay, there were two middle aged ladies trying to use the machine when I arrived. They were entirely useless, pressing all manner of buttons and getting it wrong each time. I couldn't be bothered to help, instead choosing to stand there looking thoroughly cheesed off. By the time they had finished it was 18:05. Being an adept user of ticket machines, I finalised my fare in roughly 10 seconds and paid with the exact coinage. I then made my way to platform 2 (via the subway).

The train ended up being late by 15 minutes. It was a bit of an inconvenience, but not really. I got to Rileys Snooker & Pool Emporium at 18:25 and met up with Rob, Bruno and Ede. They were playing one of those golf games with the ball that you spin. It ends up really hurting your hand. When they finished their 9 hole tournament, I joined in. "I always win at these" said Rob. Rob didn't win. At one point he was at the jukebox putting some tunes on, so Bruno and I turned his golfer round 180 degrees so that he was facing away from the green. When Rob came back he adjudged the situation and said "Hmmm, looks like I'll need the driver". He then proceeded to smack the ball 190 yards in the opposite direction. Well, Bruno and I fell about laughing. I'd like to say that the whole shenanigan cost Rob the match, but it didn't. He was rather crap.

I won the tournament, finished 4 under par. The next closest rival was Bruno, who finished 1 under par. Well convincing. This is a picture of a similar machine:

After we had finished at Rileys, we got some food and went back to Rob's to watch "Dumb & Dumber". When it finished Bruno dropped me home and that was the end of that.

Saturday:

Woke up at 11am and had cheesy beans on toast. This is my new favourite. I ate this whilst watching the final part of "Soccer AM". Again, this is my favourite part. I watched from Showboat onwards, encompassing Skill School, Rome and Crossbar Challenge. Wicked. I then had a shower and played a new Xbox 360 game called "Left 4 Dead". It's a zombie game, and I love zombies. After this I played some "PES 2009", then went round to Bruno's to watch United and Villa duke it out. It was a really boring match, and I left about 8-ish. I got home and ordered a bit of curry from Lal Akash, which I picked up and consumed around 9:30pm. I debated going back to Bruno's to watch the boxing, but thought better of it and ended up going to bed around midnight.

Sunday:

Tried to get into Crawley to do a bit of shopping for the festive season with my parents. Every car park had miles of traffic queueing up to get it. We conceded defeat and popped into Redhill. They had some event going on in the shopping centre, and I saw a Daniel Craig lookalike. It was as if Daniel Craig got hooked on skag and stopped washing, uncanny. I bought "Loco Roco 2" for the PSP, then we pretty much left. That's right, just walked out.

When I got home I watched some "Family Guy" (Season 7, yeah?), played more "Left 4 Dead" and "PES2009", then chilled out with some roasted dinner and a touch of sticky toffee pudding. Tasty. I then watched a bit more TV and went to bed around 10:30pm, prepared for the ensuing week.

I hope you had fun reading about the fun I had. Now pack your bags and get out of here, right.

Roadworks down my road at the moment. During "peak" hours they are operating a system of traffic lights. Oh, what a lark! Therefore, my time of departure for work each day has had to be amended to ensure I experience less inconvenience. This worked just fine for a couple of days, but on Wednesday I encountered a severe backlog of traffic.

As I pulled out of my driveway, I saw the stream of traffic backed up almost all the way to my house. This observation was followed by some very quick thinking, and I decided to deviate from my usual route. I didn't have much time to react as the turning off of the well beaten track was approaching fast.

I flipped the indicator to the left and took the corner with utmost urgency, laughing as I did so. You see, in the forefront of my mind was the possibility that other drivers would see me emerge further on down the road, free from the confines of traffic whilst they sat there motionless. What fun.

As I continued along on my revised route, the path less travelled, I grinned and chuckled as I flew over the speed bumps with frivolity. I was so pleased with myself, really I was. And as I merged back onto the main road I shot a glance back up the road at the chumps who lacked the foresight to take my new route. I made it in to work in great time, so I have taken this route every day since; and I will continue to do this every day until the roadworks are all gone.

Here is my route in diagrammatical form. Ingest it:

It's Children In Need day today. In our office there are balloons, posters, and people wearing yellow items of clothing. Sure, some people have yellow socks, some have yellow shoes; but I have a yellow sweater on. For the people who couldn't muster a yellow garment, they have instead opted for spotted material. It's just nice to be able to dress down a bit on a Friday, and it's for a good cause. It's not like we're all wearing yellow to save the cats and dogs. Oh, cats and dogs are dying, we have to save them. No we don't, they'll be fine, let's worry about the kids.

So I bought this jumper yesterday. Went into Redhill with the express interest of picking up a yellow tie. You see, the office is warm at the moment, mainly because women get cold easier than men. So I thought to myself "No, I won't get a jumper, it'll be too warm". But I couldn't find a yellow tie, so a cardigan had to suffice. It's acrylic, apparently. I don't even know what that means. What do you mean?!

So today I wear it. I have, underneath, a red polo shirt. I've garnished this with blue jeans and a pair of Adidas Sambas in white and red. I do have underwear on, but I'm saving myself for marriage. I don't kiss and tell.

So that's it for the office shenanigans. We played bingo, but I won't go into it. Read about it over at Steven Paul Allen's blog of evil: http://stevenallenstories.blog.co.uk/2008/11/14/need-bingo-5035295. I will leave you with a little story though, enjoy it.

Virtually Reality

When I was fairly young, probably around 8, Virtual Reality was becoming a hot property. I recall going to the Piccadilly Trocadero with my Dad and Brother once and they had some Virtual Reality games available for use. It was extortionate, about £5 for a go. You had to put on this VR helmet that made you look like a ridiculous version of Gordie from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Imagine Gordie if he was a hammerhead shark. It was really quite silly to look at.

So I stepped up, paid my £5, and strapped on my VR helmet. Because each helmet cost about £1million, you had to have a guy standing next to you, making sure you used it properly and didn't break anything. Once the helmet was secured, the guy handed me a controller stick; it resembled a flight controller, and was apparently motion sensitive. Years ahead of it's time, and the Wii has only just caught up. The game was something to do with this guy getting harangued by a pterodactyl, and the floor looked like a chessboard or kitchen floor. It was strange. Within 10 seconds I was dactyl food. After respawning, I spent another 5 seconds rooted to the spot before the flying bastard swooped down and made brunch out of me.

The guy standing beside me sensed that I was struggling to fathom the controls, so he said "Hold down the button on top, then move the stick forward, then your character will move". Immediately I held down the button and thrust the stick forward through the air. The character on the screen moved slightly, but it felt like something had stopped my controller from moving, so I pulled it back in and barrelled it forwards again...

Once again, the stick had hit something, so I lifted up my helmet to see what was going on. The bloke was standing there rubbing his forehead and looking really pissed off. I had hit him smack bang in the middle of his forehead. Not once, but twice. I wasn't allowed back on the game after that.

Oh, it's you, is it? I didn't see you there. Come in, come in, you're standing in the shadow of the doorway. Come in and sit by the fire. Come in and give me your pretty little face. Oooh, you've been in the wars! What's this scratch on your right cheek? A shaving cut? You fell into a door? You slipped whilst buttering your toast? I don't believe you, I'm calling social services. That's the last time your evil grandfather locks you under the stairs. We're going to have his guts for garters.

So... I went to Spain at the weekend. I flew out on Saturday afternoon, departing London Gatwick (LGW) at 14:00 hours GMT and arriving at Valencia (VLC) at 17:30 hours CET. I was slightly hungover, which was a personal first within the realm of aviation. In fact, it was only the second time that I had flown on my own. I used to have a slight fear of flying, but I'm ok now. I'm a shining example of someone who has overcome their fear.

I flew with Easyjet. It really is easy, they no lie. I took only hand luggage, so I printed out my boarding card from the interweb, walked straight through security, and plonked myself down on a bench for a spell. I then walked around the shops, but found nothing of real interest. I spent a great deal of time in the book shop, but again, no gems were unearthed here.

The gate was announced just ten (10) minutes before the flight was due to depart, so we had already incurred something of a delay. I had purchased this little wonder called "Speedy Boarding". Let me tell you how it work. It work because Easyjet don't allocate seat numbers upon check in. It's a veritable free-for-all. Luckily, as I was travelling alone, I had no recourse to capture seats for other passengers travelling with me. "Speedy Boarding" gets you onto the plane first so that you can grab your preferred seat(s). I like the ones with more leg-room, but these were all taken by actual disabled people. They needed them more than I did, so I was happy to let it slide. I even did so with a smile.

Yes, so when I arrived at the gate, it was the smallest room I have ever seen. Imagine trying to cram 300 people into a garden shed. Yeah, exactly, get out. When they announced the speedy boarders, this man next to me shot up out of his chair and started going "Excuse me excuse me excuse me" at me. "Excuse yourself", I said, "For I am a speedy boarder also". He had no riposte. "Good" I said. As I walked to the plane I kept saying to fellow SB's (that's what we call each other in the biz) "This speedy boarding is really something special". This annoyed the "Excuse me" man no end. Hah.

The flight was good. I read a copy of FHM and a copy of Stuff, all the while listening to my iPod. MyPod. I had this really fat woman next to me who was clearly practicing "Elbows 2000". Elbows 2000 is when you stick your elbows right out when sat in close proximity to others. This restricts the movement of the adjacent people. It's quite annoying. She was also coughing and sneezing. At one point I muttered "Great, I'm going to get a cold". She heard this, but did nothing to atone for her conduct thus far.

The thing that annoys me about plane travel is that people just don't listen to the air crew. As soon as the plane lands, people are taking off their seat belts and standing up, trying to get their luggage out. I always make a point of getting in front of these lumbering wrecks and walking really slowly off the plane. This sort of behaviour would wind up Ghandi.

As I took only hand luggage, I breezed right through the baggage hall, laughing maniacally and rubbing my hands together. I even said aloud "Tsk tsk, all those baggies... Sayonara, suckers!". It was so easy. Thanks, Easyjet, for making it so easy for me to berate other people in relative comfort and style.

We have a new member in our team at work. I am considering indulging in some friendly hazing shenanigans with this newbie. We're not going to wrap him in a duvet and hit him about the face and neck with socks filled with coins. No, this will be something far less severe, but no less psychologically punishing. Here are some ideas:

Offer to make him a cup of tea or coffee, then fill the hot brew with paper clips.

Adjust the level of his chair in small increments every time he leaves his desk. Eventually he'll be sat really high up and will hopefully resemble an office-bound Ronnie Corbett.

Attach drawing pins to the underside of his telephone handset.

Replace the screensaver/desktop wallpaper on his PC with a picture of Gary Glitter in drag.

Pritt stick every document on his desk together so that when he picks up one sheet of paper, he picks up all of them.

Set up an email rule on his PC to send important communications from various members of staff to the junk mail folder.

Sign him up for all sorts of weird herbal remedies and penis enlargement drugs online.

Black out all the dates on his desk calendar.

Swap his chocolate bourbons for Bonio.

Ring his phone from different workstations throughout the day.

Lock his belongings in his desk and throw away the key.

Unplug his keyboard and mouse on the hour, every hour.

Change his Internet homepage to www.ilovekittens.com.

Cover his monitor in cling film.

List all his stationery on eBay.

Put his security pass in the CD tray of his PC.

Hook up a wireless keyboard to his PC and type words at random whilst he is composing emails to customers.

M People. Rubbish. All their songs sounded the same; like The Lighthouse Family. But that's not why we're here, no no no. This is what I'm on about today:

Desk Move

Over the weekend, some people came into our work building and moved everything around. My team and I have been forced to move to the opposite side of the building. As if this wasn't bad enough, they have also jigged our seating plan a fair bit. I was just getting used to my desk, getting on well with my immediate colleagues, when they decided to throw the proverbial curve ball and move us all around. None of us appreciate our new desks, for a multitude of reasons.

First off, I'm facing away from everything. I have to crane my neck to look around and make sure no one is sneaking up on me. I also have no attractive ladies in my line of sight, it's a real bugbear.

Secondly, the girl I'm now sitting next to doesn't understand me. She just doesn't get my jokes, and the fact that I'm only serious about 0.00001% of the time. I can see a formal complaint being logged against me, because I know that I'm going to say something that'll get taken out of context and used against me.

Thirdly, one of my desk drawers is completely ruined. I tried to open it earlier and the contents nearly spilled out in all directions. I opened up another drawer and found there to be a sticky substance, the likes of which you've never seen. It's like someone had spit Hubba Bubba all over the shop.

Finally, there are no attractive ladies in my line of sight. It's the main cause of my frustrations.

On a more improved note, I killed a wasp earlier. It was a right bloodbath. I chucked his crushed carcass out of the window, and there was much rejoicing.

So after a harsh introduction to my roomie for the next 4 days, I was understandably keen to get as far away from him as was possible. Unfortunate then that we had to share a room. He snored like you wouldn't believe, keeping me awake for most of the night each night.

However, there was a slight turn up for the books when he came in to the room at around 4am one morning, looking slightly worse for the wear. As he had just woken me up by slamming the door, I decided to keep an eye open in case he tried to touch me. He sat on the end of his bed and bent down to take his shoes off. He gave up on this quite quickly and fell backwards, feet still on the floor at the foot of the bed, and passed out almost instantaneously. Exactly an hour later his phone went off. He stood up and tried to send a text message. He lost his balance and tumbled straight into the wall, smacking his head first on the wall then on the floor. I somehow managed to stifle my laughter at his stupidity. In the morning he said to me "Did you hear me fall over in the night?". I smirked and said "Yeah, I seem to recall you falling over in spectacular fashion". What a tit.

So the rest of the holiday involved a fair bit of sightseeing. We visited the other hotels/casinos and soaked up the tackiness that was on offer. We saw David Copperfield perform some ridiculous tricks that still have me baffled. We went to the Grand Canyon and got lost, ending up all alone at the bottom of the Canyon. We eventually found the right way and saw it properly. We tried our hands at blackjack and ended up losing. We stuck to video poker after this, which proved a lot more successful.

Then we came home and I experienced the worst jet lag I've ever had.

I do apologise for the two months, avec change, since the last written summary of my doings. I have been busy in this time, here is some of one of the many things that I done.

At the beginning of July I got on a plane to Las Vegas, Nevada, US of A, Earth. The trip was a birthday celebration for one of my Father's friends, a man called Gary. Now then, one of Gary's friends was unable to take part in the trip, so my Father suggested that I go in this stranger's place. Well, I was pleased as punch. The only downside was that I had to share a room with this strange middle-aged man by the nickname of Acker. "It's no great hardship", I thought to myself, "I'll be alright"...

After a 9 hour flight, we touched down in Las Vegas (which is Spanish for "The Meadows") in blistering 40 degree celsius heat. Wowsers! So we got a taxi from the airport to the hotel. The cabbie introduced himself and Jack. Jack was 75 years old if he was a day. Jack talked a good deal of the way en route to the hotel. At one point we were heading along the freeway at about 60mph when this tosser in a gold Merc pulled out without signalling and forced Jack into a lifesaving swerve. How he managed to miss the guy's car was a complete mystery to me, I thought I was a goner. I thought we was all goners. I remember thinking "Great, we've been here for ten minutes and I'm about to die in the back of a cab that's seen better days with a guy talking incessantly about how if you 'use' a non-licensed prostitute, your knob will fall off". It's the kind of death I would associate with someone of lower moral fibre, perhaps Pete Doherty.

So we've just avoided this crash by the skin of our collective teeth. The cock ring driving the Merc comes swaggering out of his car, inspecting the level of damage. There was no damage, but for some reason Jackie boy claimed that his wing mirror had taken a knock. The other yank was a douche, man. I won't go into it, but he nearly ended up taking a punch from my Dad.

Jack says "I have to phone this in fellas", which is fair enough. What isn't fair is that Jack isn't allowed to take us any further, he has to wait for his cab company to come out and inspect the vehicle. Shaken and angry, we are forced to flag down a couple of taxis from the side of the busy freeway. While this is going on, Jack turns to me:

"That'll be $10".
"What for?" I say, confused.
"For the ride, man" comes the reply.
"We're not at the fucking hotel, Jack. We're standing by the side of a busy road in scorching heat; fuck off, you're not getting a penny out of me". I shout as I'm clambering into the second taxi of the afternoon.

So we finally got to the hotel and checked in. This Acker geezer tries to play dumb and pretend he's sharing with someone else. Fuck you, buddy. We set the record straight and go up to our room to put our stuff away. I have my first slash in Vegas and come out of the bathroom to witness a partially undressed 57-year old gorilla man standing in my way. "Just gonna have a shower". Yeah, alright, do what you have to do, weirdo. So I take a seat to bend down and do my shoelaces up. As I glance up, I catch sight of this Acker fellow fully disrobed, standing there with his tiny old man cock winking back at me. I shot my head back down and pretended that I didn't just see what I thought I just saw. "Just gonna have a shower then" he says. I keep my head down and stammer "Y-y-y-yeah, o-ok...".

I'm still trying to figure out what is more harrowing: Narrowly avoiding certain death in a speeding car, or seeing the shrivelled up penis of an overweight, middle-aged, hairy alcoholic whom you've known for all of 5 minutes.

Instead of documenting Hitler's demise, wouldn't it have been better to make a film about the greatest board game ever made? It is my understanding that "Downfall" is a very good film as it stands, but I can't help wondering if perhaps a feature length film of two people facing off against each other in a game of "Downfall" would be more entertaining. I suppose you could also call it "Face Off" too, but I don't think they'd be able to convince Travolta and Cage to appear in it. I reckon a more likely cast would involve ex-Blue Peter presenter Tim Vincent in the role of the prodigious semi-blind priest, and the perenially typecast Danny Dyer playing a black German U-Boat commander.

So Steven Paul Allen has written about his old bike. Here is a bicycle related story from me, I call it "Pavement Pandemonium":

Pavement Pandemonium

We're going years back here, probably 12 years or more. I would have been 12. I used to go round to my mate Jack's house in Chipstead every so often, we'd hang out, I'd stay over maybe, and we'd do whatever it is that 12-year-olds do. Or maybe whatever it was that 12-year-olds used to do before knife crime was invented.

So this one time, I was round at Jack's, and we were riding our bikes up and down his road. He lived on something of a slope, nothing too harsh and unforgiving, but still it was a slope. I had already decided to try to break the sound barrier by pedalling with all my strength down the pavement. This was my quest.

So I cycled to the top of the road, prepared myself with a few deep breaths, then set off down the road at full tilt. As I screamed past Jack's house, I threw him a glance and shouted in exaltation. Unfortunately, in the process, I did not notice his next door neighbour exiting through his front gate laden with heavy boxes to deposit in his car. He didn't stand a chance. I plowed into him at top speed, sending him flying into the bush and me into his car. My face connected with the windscreen, but the inertia carried me further down the street. I ended up in a bloodied, crumpled heap, the bycicle coming to rest atop me. I composed myself and cycled off before the neighbour had a chance to catch me.

Flame On

Another funny thing that happened was when I stayed over at Jack's after a party, along with this weird kid called Stuart Birchwood. We were sitting by the pond in Jack's garden, where a couple of lanterns were still alight from the previous evening. Jack and I were talking away, while Stuart occupied himself with fire. I told you he was weird.

We paid little attention to what weird Stuart was doing, he appeared to be coating twigs in molten wax and setting fire to them. He must have progressed from this to setting fire to flowers and small bushels, because in the blink of an eye he had set fire to this bloody great fir tree. Now, these two fir trees were prized possessions to the family, so it was not ideal that Stuart had set fire to one of them. I ran indoors and called 999 to order a fire engine. They arrived rather quickly and set about putting the blaze out. The whole bloody thing had gone up like a tinderbox, engulfed in a matter of seconds. There wasn't much for the firemen to do.

By the time the blaze had settled, there was nothing left. The tree was completely vanquished. The best part was when Jack's father returned home to find one of his beloved trees decimated. He actually cried, it was well funny.