Minutes

Have you ever tried taking minutes in a meeting where you are a) new, b) very junior and c) have no idea what the business is about? I have. And people make no allowances for this when they are talking. They speak at normal speed, using all the acronyms of a large corporation (it seems that banking is worse than the civil service for this trait) and the shorthand of people familiar with each other and the subject and expect you to have something coherent at the end of it. Madness. What on earth do I write when they say stuff like, ‘oh, and you remember all that business about the RGBs on the IHT? It’s resolved now.’ One dutifully records in one’s best squiggle-hand (an older and much less legible version of shorthand), ‘RGBs IHT res’. When it comes to writing it out does one put that the RGBs IN the IHT, AT the IHT or round, under, through, from, or over the bloody IHT are resolved? Who knows. Certainly not anybody who’s been reading MY minutes recently.

Power napping

Despite my last blog, I am a strong proponent of power napping. In my last job we had a room which was designed (at great cost) to be as womb-like as possible. It was known as the Creative Thinking Room (yes, it WAS an advertising agency) and had curved walls and floor, recessed mood lighting and all the latest gadgets and gizmos. What it also had was a sofa and since I was the sole keyholder for this room, I used to book it out for an hour every afternoon around three so I could catch a few zees (zoes were too fast for me). I used to emerge puffy eyed and sluggish at around 4 (technically power napping should only last around ten minutes) and vehemently deny the frequent allegations that I was sleeping on the job. Moi? With my reputation?

Black

How is it that you can wake up and get ready for work without noticing that you are in a foul, black, bile-spitting mood. And for no reason. The first time you notice that all is not well is when you get stuck behind the slowest driver in the known universe and find yourself hissing vile imprecations at him. This will also be the only time in his life that Terry Wogan decides to play The Birdy Song on his breakfast show, and you are too busy gesticulating at the driver ahead and lighting your seventh cigarette to have a free hand to switch radio stations. So you are stuck with that tune in your head for weeks. When you arrive at work you have wound yourself up into such a state that you are incapable of climbing stairs without tripping, speaking a sentence coherently or typing anything without making 75 errors per word. All of which winds you up even tighter and you can actually hear a scream beginning in your toes and working itself up your body. My advice at times like these would be to leave. Just go home. Leaving the office immediately clears your head and because you no longer HAVE to be able to speak/type/walk, it all becomes possible, even delightful. You can sing cheerfully along to whichever mindless tune is playing, joyfully tip ash all over yourself and NOT CARE! None of this power-napping and five-minute relaxation technique stuff works. JUST GO HOME.

Somebody stop me, I’m smokin’

Yes, I know, It’s a filthy habit. And the older I get the more filthy it seems. It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve noticed how horrible my hair, my clothes and my hands smell. Honestly, I’d never really noticed before. I suppose it’s because I smoked everywhere from an early age. Nothing was sacred, I smoked in the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen and the car as well as the more normal places. Such as the mouth. So I was constantly surrounded by a miasma of evil to the point where I literally couldn’t smell it anymore. When I gave up smoking a few years ago I loved the way I could go to a cinema and NOT be craving a cigarette all the way through. The freedom it gave me to do other things instead of sneaking out for a crafty fag in non-smoking areas, the freshness of breath, the shampoo smells. Mmmm. But I fell right back into the smoking trap when I was drunk at a Christmas party (I actually started sniffing smokers fingers) and have been stuck here ever since, no matter how much I hate it. And the worst thing is that I can remember how incredibly EASY it was to give up smoking. Allen Carr is right, it’s a piece of cake. AS LONG AS YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT STATE OF MIND TO DO IT. If you’re not, forget it. There’s no way you will manage it without causing yourself and others around you a lot of stress as you fight the urges. When you have the right mind-set it couldn’t be easier. I looked forward to my giving up date as a day of freedom, and it was. My health improved imperceptibly and I only noticed how much healthier I was when I took up smoking again and got the wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath, non-specific pains, bad skin etc back again. Possibly the best part of giving up smoking for me was that I still loved the smell of smoke. This meant that I didn’t have to shut myself away while I did cold turkey and never set foot in pub again. Smokers will recognise that other people’s smoke smells infinitely better than that of their own cigarette. My rationalisation for this is that both of my parents smoked and I associate other people’s smoke-smell with that cosy, warm family feeling. Which doesn’t mean I need to smoke; it’s like smelling your father’s aftershave on somebody else. It’s a brief shot of nostalgia. And you don’t have to go out and buy a bottle and splash it all over in order to feel like that. Just the odd niff of someone else’s is fine. Just got to get my head into the right place. Preferably on someone else’s shoulders.

A Toast

Aren’t feet funny? So many people hate feet, even their own. I have no problem with mine. I even think they are quite attractive – nice high arches, cute little toes, a neat turn of ankle. Mine are not particularly ticklish and I adore having foot-rubs. Some friends once got me an at-home reflexology session for my birthday. The evening light glowed pinkly through my window, Mozart played softly in the background and some silent (perfect!) lackey played with my feet as I lay back on the sofa with a Baileys. Bliss.
I often feel sorry for my feet, since I don’t pay any attention to them unless they are hurting. I am prone to ingrowing toenails (which sounds sooo unappealing but is in reality just uncomfortable) and every so often I cut my nails in the approved manner, but I don’t give them spas, I don’t massage them or give them pedicures and I only paint my toenails in summer. In my defence, I also don’t force them into impractical shoes or put them through too much trauma in terms of exercise. Which is a double edged sword as the less exercise I do the more weight they have to carry around. They seem improbably small for such a mammoth task. There’s an awful lot of weight pressing down onto an awfully small surface area. All those teeny tiny bones bearing the weight of my brain (the size of a planet). So, here’s to my plates, gawd bless them and all who sail in them.

Stationery

I’ve always had a fetish about stationery. Not in a kinky way, but I just love the smell of new staplers, reams and reams of blank paper and post-it notes. The rattling of biros in their boxes is music to my ears. I’m clearly not alone in this. Part of my job is to monitor the stationery levels and re-order as necessary and I often go to the stationery cupboard and find people purportedly looking for a particular item, but I’ve seen the gleam in their eyes as they gaze longingly at the punched pockets and document wallets. They lurk with intent beside the notebooks and ringbinders waiting for a moment alone so they can… well. I’ m not sure what they actually want to do. I personally just love looking at it, all piled up neatly. I used to want to own it and I stole copious amounts of it in previous jobs. I even had to ‘acquire’ a stationery cupboard in which to keep it all. I have less storage space now and almost no desire to actually possess this magical stuff. But stationery catalogues are still pornography to me.

Musings on my life

I was a charmingly pudgy baby. To the point where I got stuck in my rubber swimming ring and it had to be deflated around me while my parents encouraged me to breathe in. An extraordinary sensation which I have been trying to recreate for years using an assortment of devices. I had an affinity for water at that age. There is a picture of myself and my sister in the back garden, naked as the babes we were. My sister is holding the garden hose to my mouth and my stomach is visibly swelling with the pressure. This is a sensation I experience regularly at the pub. I’n’t beer great?

When I was four we lived in the Bahamas and my mother asked me which ten of my friends I’d like to invite to my birthday party. I gave her a list which she took to my kindergarten teacher. The teacher chuckled when she saw it and told my mother she’s be in for a long day. I’d invited ten of the naughtiest black boys in the school. They all turned up on the appointed day in their velvet suits with white ruffled shirts, bow ties and patent leather shoes and my mother breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps they weren’t as naughty as she’d been led to believe. I’m told that within 30 minutes we were, all eleven of us, to be found naked up a tree in the avocado orchard behind the house. And so it began…

At the age of nine I was world-weary and jaded. I decided to write my autobiography. It began, rather excitingly, with my birth in a fire-lit long-house in Brunei. The smoky shadows throwing bizarre shapes onto the wooden walls and my father sipping coffee in a far corner muttering, ‘Fascinating’ every so often as my mother pushed me out into the soft brown waiting hands of half a dozen midwives. My biography continued with the brag that the Sultan of Brunei (yes, THE Sultan of Brunei) held me in his arms and told my mother that I was adorable. I then added a chapter (chapters aren’t very long when you’re nine) about being consumed by a crocodile and being miraculously spit out due to my slugs-‘n’-snails-‘n’-puppy-dogs-tails flavour. I was a tom-boy.

As a tom boy in an all girls boarding school I was by no means alone. I competed memorably with ‘Tom’ (the most popular girl in my year) and ‘Bow-Wow’ who was happier being a dog, amongst others less imaginative. I refused to adopt a boy’s name as mine was sufficiently (and pleasingly) androgynous but I did everything I could think of to be more boy-like. I skinned my knees climbing trees and buildings, accepted every double-dare anyone could think of, treated my conkers until they were tungsten-like and once punched a girl for suggesting I wear a skirt when out of uniform. I had a Thor tee-shirt and a fantastic pair of camoflage trousers (before they became trendy). Sadly these very clothes became history when I was run over, aged 8. My best friend Kim (another androgynous name) and I had been allowed to cross the road unsupervised for the first time in order to play in the adventure playground. My mother became concerned when we hadn’t returned on time and came to find us. As she was crossing the road some policemen were measuring it. She asked what had happened and breathed a huge (if guilty) sigh of relief when she was told that two little boys had been run over. It only took a few seconds to twig, though and she asked for a description of these ‘boys’.

I have a rubber head and bounced happily off the windscreen of the lotus and landed with a bit of a thunk on the pavement with nothing a few stitches and some linament wouldn’t solve. Unhappily my friend Kim had more serious injuries, of which I was seriously jealous. I remember lying on the emergency room table as they cut my clothes off me screaming as loudly as I could. I wasn’t in pain, particularly, but I REALLY didn’t want them to cut my clothes off me. My poor mother, waiting outside the door, was picturing horrible tortures being inflicted on me. I had a lovely time in hospital, accepting as my due the gifts and chocolate that was lavished on me. In those days they used to keep you in hospital for ages and I was in for 8 weeks before my family bribed me with a HOLIDAY in France and I graciously agreed to allow myself to be discharged. Life hasn’t really been the same since.

Fiscal matters. Doesn't it?

Today's blog concerns the mystery of money. How is it that some months one is reasonably flush and can go out spending willy nilly? Other months one can't buy a pint of milk without scrabbling behind the sofa cushions. Who designs the world so that everybody's bithdays either fall in September or February? (Actually, since both my aunt and uncle were born on 30th Sept which is 9 months to the day after New Year, I think I can guess about that, but FEBRUARY??). Cards, presents and celebrations account for a large part of this enigma, but what about the general peculiarity of money? Its bizarre and narcissistic attraction to itself? It really is true that if you have money you will acquire more. Even without trying. The only times I have won (a tenner) on the lottery have been when I'm feeling flush already. If your spare(!!) cash is temporarily AWOL, the rest will surely follow. The only time my roof has started leaking, or the car needed new tres/ brakes/ whatever is when I'm completely brassick. I feel like a schizophrenic magnet - my poles keep reversing without warning or mercy. None of this is news to you, I think. However, bank managers seem to be the least sympathetic people in the world. Do they not suffer the same fate as the rest of us? Can they not see that despite my fiscal yo-yoing I ALWAYs end up ahead of the game (even if only by a penny)? They are clearly a breed apart, designed to humiliate, patronise and sneer as they reluctantly grant you an overdraft to cover your food bills for the next week. They have no such worries because they have no heart, lungs or stomach. They don't pay rent because they live under rocks. They wouldn't know how to share the joy of a birthday celebration - they were spawned in hell's womb (somewhere near Haringay). Bastards.

The joy of communication.

More people should write letters (to me, specifically).

Old Friends, Bookends

Well, they are really more like slippers than bookends, but it's in a song so it must be right. Soft, comfy, slightly tattered and cheesy, that's what my old mates are like. My new mates haven't had to bear the ravages of my friendship for as long so they are a little less tattered, but just as cosy and warm, not to mention cheesy. I love my friends.

Sundays

Now, it's true that Sundays can be a bit of a downer. You've had a lovely weekend with your friends, phoned all the absent ones, done all your shopping (and inevitably spent way more than your bank manager condones) and tidied the cutlery drawer. Which leaves NOTHING to do on Sunday. A great gaping vacuum of time. Unless you've been out on the piss the night before and are recovering en masse over fried eggs and bacon at the local café, the day yawns before you with a soul-destroying emptiness. You can feel the wind of boredom rasping over the plains of frustration. The slough of despond beckons with a gleeful claw.

Unless, of course, you are blessed with a family like mine. Far flung and far out. My father lives in Thailand with his Thai wife, 22 years his junior, and my sister lives in Belize (where?) with her newly acquired American thrice-divorced husband. Ordinarily, whilst on different continents, we all get on like a mildly smoking house. Perhaps a small crumpet/toaster incident on the moon would be the equivalent.

My father has Alzheimer's which I find both hilarious and heart-rending. He
sometimes phones (remind me to launch into a diatribe about Thai phones at some point) and asks me why I'm calling. 'What can I do for you?' he asks, clearly not remembering who he's speaking to, or 'where are you calling from?' when he has called my landline. It's always a pleasure to speak to him as he has such charming manners. I'm often tempted to say that I'm cousin Sally, or the taxman just to see what he'd say.

Last Sunday, having stayed in on Saturday night to catch up on my junk-food and had a relatively early, if flatulent night, I was nevertheless unprepared for the jolt that severed me from my rather naughty dream at 8.30am. Due to my family being so distant, I often react to a ringing phone with spasms of terror. Who has died? Who's being held hostage? Who's caught in a flood/earthquake etc and where's my Superman suit so I can fly angrily round the earth fast enough to turn back time? This time my father had clearly felt strongly enough about something to brave the vagaries of his wife's mobile phone and call me. However, Thai Telecom (or whatever
they're called) were having a small nervous breakdown . Although I could hear my father perfectly, he could hear nothing but the aching void. After several minutes of fruitless shouting we both hung up. An hour later we had a repeat performance.

It seems to me that we live in an age where things like phones should be pretty much sussed. If we can use satellite phones to speak to people in the middle of the Sahara, why can't we make calls between two medium sized towns (albeit many miles apart)? The third attempt was affected by my stepmother. Normally she would call, chat for a while and hand me over to my father as an afterthought, but today she clearly had better things to do than baby-sit a call from her husband to his recalcitrant daughter and handed me straight over as soon as she had established that both parties could hear each other.

My poor father was clearly keen to get a message across. Unfortunately he had misplaced the synapse connecting his mouth to the relevant information. We had a strange looping conversation regarding my sister's wedding the previous day. Neither of us had been able to attend which appalled all parties. Each felt that their reason was valid but the other's wasn't. It was clear to me that my father wanted to give me a good ticking off for not going to Belize (at a cost of £1,300 all told) to give my sister away at a ten minute ceremony barefoot on the beach. Luckily he wasn't able to remember this was why he was calling and instead kept asking which route I had taken to the wedding and whether I might be dropping in on him on the way home.

My long-suffering stepmother had clearly had enough of this circuitous rambling and after a few minutes she shouted impatiently from across the room, 'ask her why she didn't go to her own bloody sister's wedding and hang up on her!'. Did I mention that my father has impeccable manners? Constitutionally incapable of being so rude, he merely said. 'Ummm. Here's Lat' and handed me over. Whereupon my stepmother proceeded to do exactly what she has urged my father to do. I was left with a dead line and a gaping mouth. And a Sunday which suddenly wasn't long enough to fit in all the stomping, swearing and teeth-gnashing I needed to fit in.

North Bucks County Show

Imagine, if you will, four friends and a small child. Sounds idyllic, does it not? Well, frankly, it is. We set off shortly after lunch (which we hadn’t co-ordinated and therefore some had eaten and some had not. Bear with me, this is relevant.) for the North Bucks County Show. Most excellent. I had been looking forward to this since I had been told what they do at County Shows. I’m an ex-(and very grateful for that fact)-Londoner and had thus only been to craft fairs no more than half an hour away from the seething metropolis. I had thought this was what county fairs were. Not so. County fairs involve Shire horses, rare breed animals, dog shows not unlike Crufts, children’s gardens (an appealing thought if only the children weren’t involved) and all sorts of cake tents and other goodies. Wahay!

We arrived at the destination somewhat befuddled about why there were no other people, no cars, no tents, no shire horses and most importantly, no CAKE! We asked at the gate and were told (not very confidently) that it might be being held about fifteen miles away. So, in high spirits and shaking our heads ruefully at our foolishness, off we drove again.

Several dozen miles (and many many potholes) later we reached the end of the road. Both literally and figuratively as the Show was supposed to be just BEFORE the town and the road terminated at the town. In high dudgeon we marched down the high street looking for sustenance and somewhere to sit and figure out what to do next. After all, we had a small child to entertain and everyone knows how demanding they can be!

Said small child, however, was perky and charming throughout, which on top of her endearing prettiness was almost too much for a certified, card holding member of the NO KIDS PLEASE, WE’RE BRITISH brigade.

We ended up in a pub eating average main courses and superb puddings. Whiling away the afternoon in a most pleasant and, I like to think, rural manner. We meandered home in a bloated and peaceful mood for naps. I love the country and I plan to go to the North Bucks County Show every year in the wrong month.

Builders

Builders
Blimey. What a useless shower. My flat in London has always been a bit of a sieve and every so often I need to plug a new hole (so to speak). Finding a builder is a painful process of asking (nay, begging) everyone you know (or meet, however briefly – newspaper vendors, people at bus stops) for recommendations, phoning said builders and being told they either can’t fit you in or you are not in their area. Now London is a big city, I grant you, but you wouldn’t catch an Australian saying, nah, mate, you’re a half hour drive away, I couldn’t possibly make it that far.

Once you have found someone to come and give you an estimate (usually from the Yellow Pages despite the fact that, like therapists, you should NEVER use a builder without a personal recommendation) they turn up. Often days late and without ladders or other necessary equipment. Or they’ll send their cousin’s girlfriend’s brother who’s on work experience. Doesn’t have a clue, clearly, but you still fawn over him because you NEED the work done. The buckets are overflowing, the plaster is falling off in clumps and you’ve had enough of that mouldy smell. So Boy Wonder tells you he can’t give you an estimate since he’s only thirteen and needs to ask his mum. Or the builder you originally requested, whichever is closer.

Seven weeks later, the Builder Himself might turn up and have a look around. Tells you he’ll have to price up some parts and will send you a quote in the post. Bless his optimism. He knows as well as you do that he can’t actually write. Why should he bother with all that book-larnin? There are so many suckers out there who’ll pay him for slapping a patch of tar-paper over their gaping roofs, cash-in-hand, no questions asked. Writing’s for poofs and girls. Real men with enough back-hair and facial pocks don’t need it.

So now you have been told that you will need to re-mortgage and possibly sell your children in order to pay for the tiny crack in the fifth rooftile along. Fifteen weeks later, in a downpour of biblical proportions the builder turns up. Clearly not dressed for work he tells you, as if it’s news to him, that it’s raining and he can’t possibly work in these conditions. His clean, pressed jeans and flashy white trainers, along with the monogrammed darts in his shirt pocket, indicate that he had no intention of working today and only turned up to make you think he was conscientious, possibly in the hopes of scamming a tip from you. He informs you patronisingly that you should have planned to get the work done before winter started. Of course you bite your tongue and don’t mention that it was HIS 22 week delay. You are at his mercy.

On the day that dawns grey but dry, you builder turns up with five of his mates in tow. It is implicit that you will be paying for these inexperienced louts to drink your tea (with six sugars each) and read papers while leaving dirty fingerprints and footprints all over your home. This is on the understanding that your builder needs assistance from these lads. Mainly lewd suggestions and bacon-buttie-wrapper spreading. But god, they are GOOD at that!

After an interminable amount of time clearing up after them and living in a drift of plaster dust and mars bar wrappers, one day your builder states smugly that the job is finished. It has taken approximately eight weeks of howling gales coming through your gaping roof, filth and cheap tabloids EVERYWHERE, foul smells from the loo and endless amounts of tea and sugar but finally you are alone in your kingdom again. Your intact kingdom. No more rain coming in, no more sloshing buckets and mouldy smells. No. All you have now is a small re-decoration job. Bit of plastering, painting, small amount of re-wiring, bit of clearing up of buttie-prints from surprising places, finding the odd scrap of Page 3 stunna in your underwear drawer. Of course you won’t be able to afford tea or sugar for yourself since the job went over-budget by four hundred percent. Nothing major. But you do need help with that plastering and wiring. You start to wonder if Builder Man knows anyone who can help…