Went to the cinema last night I did. This was after leaving work late at 6:30pm and dropping my Nan off home. I have mixed views on the cinema, this is why. First off, I enjoy watching films on a large screen and with the volume turned up superloud, this pleases me. However, I do not agree with the clientele of most cinemas. I almost always have to endure people talking on mobile phones, rustling empty crisp packets and chatting amongst themselves. Last night was no exception.

We sat down to watch "American Gangster" with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. No, I don't mean that we sat down with them, rather that they were in the film. That's cleared the air considerably, yes?

When we got there it was quiet, dead really. I was hoping that we'd be the only ones in the cinema, this would have made for a nice viewing experience with no distractions. My hopes were soon shattered. The place filled out rather quickly and before I knew it I had clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and everyone and his Uncle sitting in my vicinity. Rats.

Whilst the trailers played there was a fair bit of conversation. This was fine, I don't pay to watch trailers, I get 'em for free on the Apple website, foo'. However, once the film had started, the chatter continued. And it stayed this way for the whole film. Two small groups of people were talking for the entire duration, start to finish with no intermission. This displeased me greatly. I ask myself "Why pay £8 to talk through a film?". Ah well, some things will never change.

It makes me want to buy the entire room so that I can watch films in complete bliss. This would be expensive, I'd only be able to do it once a month.

Ian Dulley
29/11/2007 11:04
To Steve Allen

Subject - Welsh

What are your thoughts on the Welsh?

Ian Dulley
Contract Management Executive
Scotland & North
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Allen
29/11/2007 11:11
To Ian Dulley

Subject - Re: Welsh

They speak in code.

Regards,

Steve Allen
MDM Lease Analyst
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ian Dulley
29/11/2007 11:13
To Steve Allen

Subject - Re: Welsh

My point exactly.

Ian Dulley
Contract Management Executive
Scotland & North

A couple of months ago we had this rather strange fellow temping in my department. His name was Christopher. I returned from holiday to find that we had acquired a couple of new temporary staff sitting amongst my team members. This is just the way it goes sometimes.

So as I was saying, he was a rather strange man. No one had gotten around to telling him that his fluffy musketeer beard wasn't very becoming of him. In fact it made him look downright weird. I guess you could say he was unapproachable; but I say that mainly because I didn't want to approach him if I could help it. There was something sinister about his quiet façade, something cold and calculating. Or maybe he was just mildly retarded, this I do not know.

Over time I grew to ignore Christopher more severely. Now, I'm no sociopath. I always have time for other people, in fact I'm something of a social butterfly. Especially if I have had a few drinks. I like the art of conversation, I find it scintillating and satisfying. Christopher clearly did not. His generally rude demeanour served only to repel people from talking to him. Perhaps this is how he wanted it to play out. I also found it a tad unnecessary that he apparently chose to smell like rotting tacos.

Christopher's unique musk was the kind of body odour that you can only attribute to someone who has masturbated vigorously and incessantly for a whole month whilst sitting in an ever-increasing pile of their own faeces. The smell was disgusting, I'm being honest here. He smelt like he had sat out in the arid and unforgiving heat of the Sahara desert with kippers wrapped around his entire body. It was really rather unpleasant.

Because I chose not to speak to Christopher, I didn't know how he felt about having to temp instead of committing to a real job. As it transpires he really hated working at my workplace. Legend has it that he would moan to anyone who would listen about how shit it was at my place of work. I didn't care for what he had to say, I quite like my job. Well, at the very least I like the people I work with.

Needless to say, Christopher didn't last for much longer once his tongue had loosened. He was out the door rather quickly for neglecting to do any work whatsoever. When he was but a distant memory I came across a couple of pages of A5 paper, torn from a notepad. Upon the pages were the ramblings and illustrations of a Grade-A nut bar. It was like when you read about scumfucks like Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy and it turns out that they kept notebooks of how humanity has served them a shit hand and that they deserve better. Reading through the scrawls of barely intelligible cursive that lined the pages, it was clear that Christopher was a man unhinged. It was quite disturbing to read through the apparent “dialogue” with himself.

And the pictures that he'd drawn of him shooting someone in the head were rather fucked up too.

Played "Trivial Pursuit" on Saturday evening round at the abode of one Steven Paul Allen. He was there along with Tash Cox and Nick Scott. I had never played "Trivial Pursuit" before, so it was nice to get my "Triv" on. I didn't do too badly, all things considered. By the time we came to finish up, I had accumulated 4 slices of various coloured cheeses. I think the two I didn't obtain were the blue (Geography) and the brown (Art & Literature). I was fairly unlucky not to get my cheese questions, seeing as how I was doing so well in answering the run of the mill Q's.

My personal preference is the pink questions. It's all about Entertainment, see? I was pretty hot at this category, and it showed. Everyone was commenting on my adept knowledge of most things entertainment based. I also went above and beyond the call of duty when asked what the name of a chemical was that came to prominence in San Francisco in the 60's. I answered with the following: "LSD which stands for Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. This astounded my contemporaries and earned me the "Photographic Memory" title. I also remembered the answers for every question asked on that fateful night.

Whilst we engaged in the "Triv" I ingested a couple of cans of Carlsberg Export. It was just ok, nothing to write home about. It's just lager really. Steve poured me a drab of Talisker, which was very mellow and warm. Lovely bee.

Once the game had been rained off due to lack of composure from some of the constituents, we sat down to watch "Death At A Funeral", which I found to be very bloody funny indeed. A nice little correlation was found in one of the characters who had taken a really strong tablet containing Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. Half of one of these tablets will "Blow your head off", according to Kris Marshall's character: Troy. Unfortunately for Simon Smith, he took a whole one, believing it to be a Valium. Much hilarity ensued. I recommend this film. I will give it a 9 out of 10. The missing point is the fact that it was not long enough and didn't have enough Ninjas or Pirates. In fact it had no Ninjas or Pirates. What a McShame.

I got a cab back from Redhill station at 3am. It was busy, man. Loads of clubbers descended on the taxi ranks of Redhill and made a general nuisance of themselves. There was one guy who I chatted to who was quite alright. He kept asking me if I was going to Horley, then would ask how much it normally costs me to get to Godstone. I kept telling him that I was going to Reigate and he would apologise and say "Yeah, Reigate". Then he would ask me how much it normally costs me to get to Godstone. He got stuck in a loop, you see. That's just what alcohol is capable of.

Where possible I like to use the "end of terrace" cubicle in the work facilities. This negates the risk of being caught in the middle of two dumpers. I don't care for the stereo effect resulting from having to occupy the "sandwich filling" cubicle.

Of late I have not been keeping on top of things and as a result I have become lacklustre in my upkeep of this document. Here I am trying my best to atone for this mishap. In lieu of writing a retrospective of everything that has happened, please find a few morsels of infotel about what I have been doing with myself.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Carling Islington Academy to write a review of a live show by an artist known as Jesse Malin. It can be found here, at this site.

It was a rather enjoyable evening indeed. I caught up with my ex-girlfriend Claire, who is a photographer. You will note that the picture is taken by her, it is very good. I hadn't seen Claire in almost two years, the last time we met up was at the Sigur Rós gig at Brixton Academy on 10/11/05, quite a long time ago. I remember being very skint at the time, not having a paid job. Somehow I managed to afford two ill fitting t-shirts that are nice, but probably won't be worn confidently for quite some time.

On this most recent Saturday I played squash with Bruno Fountain and Chris Light. I was ok, I beat Bruno in our first match-up, then Chris beat us all comprehensively. He has age on his side, you see. In my second match against Bruno I was losing in spectacular style. It was as the final point was about to be taken from my grasp that my own two legs became entwined with each other, twisting my right knee and foot in the process. The injury was so severe that I couldn't even get up into a sitting position. I can now understand the pain that footballers must go through when a similar injury befalls them. Now I see the reason why they roll around in agony, it really was that painful. As a result I have not been able to walk correctly, now I limp around like a wounded animal. It's the foot that causes the most grief, if the truth be known.

So for most of this most recent of weekends I rested up and played "Assassin's Creed" on Patrick "Panasonic HDTV" Viera. Lovely stuff in all honesty. I have also been playing segments of "The Orange Box" which is a collection of the "Half Life 2" games. On top of all this, Chris Light came round on the Saturday afternoon to watch the Scotland Vs. Italy football match. Poor Scots. Although Scottish fans support whichever team England are playing, as an act of sheer malice, I was openly cheering on our northern cousins. You won't catch me stooping to such levels, no sir.

About 10 minutes before the end of the football match we ordered a Chinese takeaway. A delivery, if you don't mind. The lady informed me that it would be 40 minutes. "They always give you an over-inflated ETA, that way when it arrives 'early' you are surprised and happy" I thought to myself. Alas, 40 minutes later and the food had still not arrived. After an hour and 15 minutes of waiting, I phoned the takeaway repository. "We're just sending the driver out now, sorry" came the response. No matter, the food would be with us soon. Hungry from the plethora of cider and lager that we had consumed, we waited patiently, all the while playing "Pro Evolution Soccer 2008" on Patrick Viera, the HDTV of yore. A further half an hour and still no sign of the food. I was hungry and angry, hangry if you will. I phoned them again and you won't believe what I was told.

"The driver delivered it to the wrong address" said the lady. "And when were you going to tell us this? How can someone who has not ordered a takeaway pay for one when it turns up out of the blue? Can your driver not read house numbers?". All these questions, and more. It was a real 'Beadle's About' moment. As it turned out we were offered a 20% discount. This would suffice. We were also promised a wait of no less than 10 minutos. Agreeable.

Lo and behold, 10 minutes later there came a knock at the door. It was the driver, looking sheepish. An eastern European chap he was. "I sorry, I deliver to wrong house". I snatched the food off him and paid in our discounted dollars for his wares. Then I sent him packing. After over 2 hours of waiting, our food had finally arrived. And it was bloody lovely.

Yesterday morning I was late in to work. I was ill, you see. I had woken up to a nosebleed gushing at full force from my nasal cavity. This had caused me to swallow a large amount of blood during my sleep. I felt rather sick as a direct side effect of the bleed, and made my way to the bathroom. As soon as I entered the bathroom I became overwhelmed by dizziness and nausea. I couldn't even make it from the door to the toilet, an estimated distance of two metres, before I started to expunge the blood from my stomach. I pinwheeled uncontrollably in the bathroom, spewing the crimson liquid over everything within my immediate vicinity. By the time I was finished vomiting the blood was all over the floor and the walls. It was time for a clean-up operation. Miraculously I felt quite normal after the episode of sickness and proceeded to clean and disinfect the room which, quite uncannily, resembled a murder scene. This act, in and of itself, took me well past my scheduled work commencement of 8:30am, and I was late in by over a half of an hour. Madre de dios!

Other than all this craziness, I have been going radio rental for the overtime that work has offered. Most days I arrive at 7am, when it is nice and quiet and I am the only one in the entire building. I proceed to work through until lunch, granting me an hour and a half of overtime. In the afternoon I work right through until 7pm or 8pm, depending on how I feel. This gifts me an extra 2 or 3 hours of the overtime. Of course, overtime is paid at a rate of "time and a half". This is quite alright by my standards, so I am happy for the promise of extra income that it brings. I might splash out on an air freshener for my car. Yeah. I'm going to make my car smell like a Vauxhall Nova.

For the last week, Jonny Inglewood has been feeding me super strength coffee. It all started when I put some white sugar in his glass of water a few weeks back. I mixed it in perfectly so that no residue could be seen. Four sachets of the stuff was used, and it worked a right charm. When Mr. Inglewood returned from lunch he sipped his water and exclaimed "I must have eaten something really strange tasting for lunch".

So when the opportunity arose for yon Inglewood to make me an assfuck coffee, he took the bull by the horns and went the whole hog. All animal analogies (animanalogies) aside, he put three sachets of Nescafe Gold Blend into a mug, used a tiny amount of hot water and filled the rest of it up with milk and many sugars. The result was a normal looking coffee that tasted just dandy. The drawback was the sheer velocity of the caffeine energy that coursed through my veins. I felt as though I had been electrocuted with a percolator.

Of course, I was not made fully aware of the situation until later on that day. It was after being informed of the strength of the coffee that I was able to put 2 and 2 together and make a nice round 4. Curse you, Jonny.

So ever since then I have requested that Jonny does not repeat this performance. I did not wish to have heart palpitations any more. Unfortunately Jonny lied to me. He has been making me triple strength coffee every day. I received this email earlier which I'm sure you will find riveting:

Dear Ian

After much consideration I have decided to stop making you triple strength coffees out of concern for your health.

From now on I will use a maximum of 1 and a half satchets,

Take Care

Jonathan Inwood

I don't believe his words.

Haven't made a post for a long while. This is something that I have come to realise. Here's a little sample, just an example, of what I have been doing with my time away. Thanks in advance.

On Thursday 25th October I went to Valencia to attend my Brother's wedding. This was the first time that I had flown on an aeroplane on my own. I was apprehensive and nervous, but I needn't have been. The flight was lovely. I sat next to a man who was reading a Spanish version of The Da Vinci Code.

The wedding was on the Sunday (28th October). It was immense. A lot of food and drink was consumed by myself, and I danced like John Travolta in "Pulp Fiction". My Mother was astounded as she did not realise that I can actually dance. I attribute my secret skill to "Dance Dance Revolution".

I came back from Valencia on 31st October. Hallowe'en.

Back to work on the Thursday (1st November). It was ok actually. Jay Joseph had deleted all my emails so I did not have to catch up on the thousands of little shites that would normally have been sitting there. Lovely bee.

On Friday I went out drinking with the work contingent. I was really tired because I've been getting in to work at 7am every morning to try to alleviate some of the pressures of work. A bit like a brain shunt. Hence when I went out I was quite drunk after 5 pints of Guinness and copious Jack Daniels con Coca-Cola. Basically, Thursday was my night off. When I was in Spain I was drinking every day and getting to bed at increasingly ludicrous hours. One night I got to bed just after 5am having spent the evening drinking and philosophising with guests. Top banana.

On Saturday I decided to have a lie-in. This was not to be, as my Dad waltzed in to my room and woke me up by saying "Are you up?". Clearly I wasn't, but the act of him shouting these words was enough to wake the dead. I had to drive him to Epsom Downs so that he could retrieve his car.

On Sunday I slept in until 12:30pm. It's just what I'm capable of. I went to the hairdressers to get a barnet trim. I sat there for 2 hours. It was beyond a joke. A joke, you see, is funny. But it all came out in the wash, I got my hair cut and the rest is history.

Today I have had 4 cups of coffee over the course of 7 hours. You see, I got to work at 7am and it is now 2pm. I will be staying here until 5:30pm, then I'm off to play football.

That's it, you're not getting anything more out of me.