Thursday 30 August 2007

I’m all about ice packs today. I went to the chiropractor last night for some readjustments and my lower back is very, very sore. Apparently it’s inflamed too, which is great because I thought my bum was just fat!

This weekend I played in a concert; one of the pieces we played was ‘Earth Cry’ by Peter Sculthorpe, for orchestra and didgeridoo. I would happily recommend that you listen to that (though if you’re in North Sydney, don’t bother trying to borrow the recording from the library just yet because I have it!) It’s a wonderful piece and I was quite moved by the composer’s thoughtful foreword.

Saturday 25 August 2007

A Badly-Written Rant

When I first heard about APEC the main thing I thought was ‘Extra day off – great! Thanks, Bush!’ Yet now I’m scouring the internet for protest marches I can join. Now, I’m as apathetic as the next person. So what has brought this about?

I’m sick of hearing politicians and the police talk about ways they can keep the people ‘obedient’ and squash protest. I’m sick of them sneering at dissenters. And I’m amazed that they admit to it so openly. If this was China, the government would pretend there was no dissent. If this was the UK, they’d pretend they welcomed it as an expression of free speech. This being Australia, they openly tell anyone who’ll listen that they plan to stamp out any expression of the people’s anger, smugly showing off the new water cannon which they plan to use against their own citizens. I’m shocked by the aggressive tones they use when telling us how they plan to shut us out.

In Britain, we have this thing we like to call ‘the right to peaceful protest’. We don’t use it very often, but it’s OUR RIGHT. No amount of threats from politicians (and the media are quite cheerful about reporting these) should deter anyone from exercising this right.

I admit that I’m worried the police are going to initiate/encourage a dangerous situation during the protests. They’ve been softening up the public in preparation for some time now, and I can just imagine their air of pleased resignation if they have to report a violent end to the event. They clearly can’t wait to use their brand new water cannon on their fellow citizens. Yet, I think it’s extremely important that protesters avoid violence at all costs. There’s nothing the establishment would like more than to portray Howard-haters simply as thugs looking for kicks.

But even if some protesters do turn ugly, surely the police should contain them efficiently and quickly, without having to turn the whole thing into a Tiananmen Square? There’s violence sometimes at other big events – eg rock concerts, football matches – and the police don’t seem to feel the need to ban those events outright, or make an example of everybody.

What really blows me away is how little the Australian public seems to care. In the UK, people are quite apathetic too, but I like to think that even the average man on the street would be appalled at the gall of an elected government which happily ignores the basic rights of people in a free society. Are the Australian people in such a deep stupor of material well-being that they can’t see what’s going on around them? I never thought to experience such blatant state and police repression in a western democracy. Maybe Australians should get out more and note how things are done in other democracies, and then they might be as outraged as they bloody well should be.

I’m reminded of this slightly bogan young guy who I work with. He was mouthing off one morning about how people are going to vote John Howard out and then the economy is going to collapse, blah blah blah. Now let’s just suppose for one moment that John Howard is indeed an economic visionary, and that what’s good for the economy is indeed good for the average person. Have moral values no place in voting criteria? Has it not occurred to him that there’s more to a leadership than making sure people can afford to buy more stuff? How greedy are you people? Clearly such issues as education, the arts, foreign policy (ie do we have the right to kill people in other countries), the environment, etc have completely passed him by. It’s scary to think that he is representative of the Australian public. If he is, then hell, maybe they don’t deserve freedom of expression. Freedom of mediocrity more like.

This morning the bimbo on breakfast TV happily told us that prisons are sending lower-priority inmates home to make sure there’ll be plenty of space for us during APEC. A threat? Surely not!!

BRING IT ON.

So I’ll be out there in the protests on the APEC weekend. Baking day can wait.

Friday 24 August 2007

Space Man

I’ve just deserted my post at the Stationery Cabinet for an hour to attend at talk by a NASA astronaut. Now I know what I want to be when I grow up! What a shame it is I didn’t think of that before. Having said that, my chances of a having any sort of career in science were blown when I was five and my parents decided to move to Saudi Arabia and put me into a shit school. But hey, I can dream…Maybe there’ll be a revolution in my country and the shortage of workers will force the government to sponsor free training programs for everyone to start new careers. Wait, who am I kidding? They’d just import the workers from another country and hang the locals.

But I digress.

It was very exciting to hear an astronaut talk about his experiences, in person. First of all, he showed us a video of his latest mission. There was no sound, and he explained what was going on as we went. I didn’t understand most of it as he talked in a fast, American monotone and used a lot of jargon, like ‘G force’. Of course, I easily worked out that particular example from context, but there were plenty of phrases I didn’t, and he spoke so quickly that I couldn’t even tell you what they were. It didn’t matter to me, though, as I’ve long since abandoned any attempt to understand anything scientific, so I just went along for the ride.

It got really interesting in the second half, when he answered audience questions. I must say they asked some good ones. He spoke a lot about his feelings in various situations, emotional and physical, and personal impressions. He told us about the view of stars from space. Unfiltered by the Earth’s atmosphere, they don’t twinkle, but they appear in a spectrum of colours, rather than the mostly silver stars we see from Earth. He said the Milky Way appears as a huge, bright streak, and when your eyes adjust, you can then make out other galaxies quite clearly.

Apparently astronauts have flashbacks sometimes, when they’ve returned to Earth. He told us about a friend, who was sitting at home having a drink. He suddenly reverted to being in space, stuck out his arm and let go of the glass! He told us that one morning he woke up and looked out of the window, and his eyes went funny and couldn’t focus – his brain was still adjusting to being in zero gravity, and having a definite up/down point of reference. Apparently, when you’re in space, without the fixed directions normally provided by gravity, the brain processes what you see differently. It’s funny to think that what I always considered a necessary function of the eye and brain is actually only conditional on people being on Earth. We could learn to live in non-Earth environments, and our brains would quickly adapt to working differently.

Interestingly, he believed in the colonisation possibilities of Mars. That’s a bit of a worry – haven’t we messed up our planet enough without wanting to ruin other ones? I guess questions of morality and ethics are outside the sphere of scientists.

Thursday 23 August 2007

When Someone Else Reaps What You Sow

About eighteen months ago, the Man decided to rip out the rather nasty, weed-like plants the council had abandoned in the nature strip outside our house about twenty years ago, and turn it into a herb garden. He thought about it for a while, then got to work, pulling out plants, shovelling, and adding quality soil in to fertilize it. I helped, pulling out weeds here and there and generally not being terribly effective. Gardening is hard, physical labour! I don’t know why I always used to think of it as a genteel, retirement hobby for floral skirt-wearing older women. Our garden was a job fit for Arnie himself!

So, the Man churned up all the soil, replenished it, then lovingly replanted it with herb plants bought from the local market. Most of them grew very well. We’d harvest them ourselves, and he often urged the neighbours to take cuttings for their cooking too. Our next-door neighbours on one side took a particularly keen interest, watering it as well as buying the Man new plants. He had this idea that it would become a community venture, and hoped it would encourage other gardeners to do the same to their nature strips. He fantasized about our street becoming known for its splendorous flowerbeds! He dreamed of the council closing off our road to cars; children would once again play in the streets and all the neighbours would know each other and leave their houses unlocked (note to self: must stop the Man reading those Jehovah’s Witnesses pamphlets!)

This winter, the Man decided to grow tulips, to make the garden extra special this spring. He bought a load of bulbs and kept them in the fridge for weeks. Despite a couple of near misses, they escaped being fried with sausages (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve ever shared your fridge’s vegetable drawer with tulip bulbs) and a few weeks ago, he planted them.

The tulips have been flowering in fits and starts. The first to blossom was a lone red one. It opened in solitary splendour and we complimented it every time we stepped out of the house. One Saturday morning, we came back from grocery shopping in Chinatown, and I admired it as I carried the groceries into the house. Ten minutes later, it was gone. Now, the Man is a cynic, and ever since he bought the bulbs he’d been saying that he thought people would steal them. But still, you could see he was upset.

I don’t take decisive action very often, but I couldn’t stand to see him so crestfallen and disappointed. So I ran down the street to see if I could see anyone carrying the tulip. Sure enough, in about thirty seconds I’d spotted a small boy wandering down the street, a red flower bobbing from his hand. I approached him and said, “Excuse me, did you pick our tulip?” He said he’d found it on the ground by our house. Now obviously, he’d picked it, but I didn’t contradict him. I just explained that the Man had put a lot of effort into the flowers and was very sad that his tulip had gone, and could I give it to him so he wouldn’t be so sad? The boy said yes, handed it over, and I thanked him. When I told the Man, he wasn’t upset any more. It’s hard to be angry with a young child for picking a bright red flower – even the Man’s hatred of humanity doesn’t extend that far! – and I hope that I handled the situation so that the child will understand why you shouldn’t pick flowers. So far, so good.

A few days ago, three more flowers came through: two red ones opened and a mauve bud poked out. It seemed that the promise of a colourful garden was going to come true! But this morning I opened the front door to find that all three had disappeared. All the colour was gone, and when I looked more closely I saw the rocket plant had been cut down near the roots.

The Man told me that a couple of days ago, he saw the local mad bag lady cut the entire rocket plant with a pair of scissors. He wishes now that he’d come out of the house and said something. This morning there were footprints all over the garden, and he reckons it she came and ripped out the tulips last night when he was watching the television. She has also taken the coriander plant. There are still tulip plants in the garden, nowhere near flowering, and he believes that she’ll be back for them as soon as they show.

I can’t adequately describe how I felt to see his disappointment and sadness this morning. He’s put so much love into the garden. He so enjoys having conversations about the garden with passers-by, and teaching the neighbours’ toddler about all the plants. I’m so angry that this has happened. He’s talking about uprooting the remaining tulip plants and putting them in pots indoors. I mean, he’s going to have to move them now. He can’t leave them out there to be harvested by that mad old woman.

Of course, it might not have been her, but I believe you should trust your instincts on these things. And maybe I shouldn’t malign the weak minded, but in my opinion, there’s loveably loopy and there’s just plain loopy. I don’t care how senile she is, she’s a selfish bitch to have ruined the Man’s flower garden, and I hope something really horrible happens to her. Why is it you can’t do anything nice in public spaces? This is why people get the mentality of locking their valuables away behind closed doors and distrusting their neighbours.

Tuesday 21 August 2007

Out-shouted

I'm trying to craft another pearl of a blog entry for you, but this bloody woman at work has been distracting me all day so it doesn't look as if it's going to happen. Every time I get halfway through a chain of thought, her horrid, rough voice booms out again as she calls up a client or one of her friends to bore them with her gruff commentry and vulgar jokes. Somebody should tell her she's a woman.

Thursday 16 August 2007

Preoccupation

This weekend I went to Como with the Man, to visit their crafts market. I bought some fresh garlic, which looked like spring onions and stank out my backpack, and I won the raffle prize! I was so surprised. I’m now the proud owner of a basket of Australian cosmetics and a cute white bear. I spent the rest of the day feeling special.

I must say, I’m very preoccupied at the moment. The Man offered me his Frequent Flyer points to go to the UK to see my parents this Christmas. Unfortunately, there are no free flights available over the Christmas break – they were all booked about 80 years ago by those annoying folk that have their lives planned out years in advance. But I’m still hooked on the idea, and am endless churning the various possibilities over in my mind. I’m actually tempted right now to jack in my job and be free again.

Actually, I must be getting more mature, because I’m less tempted to dump my job – it was so hard come by, disappointment though it is – and more inclined to start saving like a fiend so that I can give up work and do what I want to do. Whatever that is. But it would be nice to be independent for the first time in my life. I’ve never felt as if I’m in control of my destiny. I imagine that everyone else in the West is, except me.

I have nothing to do at work at the moment. I’m so bored. Even when small things come that I could do, I’m now so lethargic I can’t be bothered to do them. The only thing that stops me sliding into a stupor is the discomfort in the back of my thighs from sitting on them all day. I must have chair sores!

Wednesday 15 August 2007

Don't Buy Your Underwear From Marks & Spencer's Mail Order

Here's what I wrote in an e-mail to M & S this morning. A warning to all buyers of underwear!

Dear Customer Services,

After receiving my latest order of bras, I can honestly say that I will never be using your mail order again.

Living in Australia, it's impossible to find basic t-shirt bras that aren't huge, and/or padded, granny, or slutty. So I thought I'd order from M & S as an ideal solution. I'd have them sent to friends and family in the UK, and then they could send them on to me here in Sydney.

So I did, and this is the second time I've received bras that look nothing like the picture and don't seem to fit the description. I've now got to return them. Again. And not only is it expensive to keep paying for bras to be sent and returned across the continents, but it's bad for the environment.

I don't think that I could have anticipated this problem. After the first bad order, I was very careful to read all the details on the product web pages and scrutinize the pictures. I decided on the two bras T33 0415B 06801595 and T33 0415B 07191176 because they looked small and discreet, basic, and non-padded. If you look at the pictures on your site, I think you'll agree with me that they don't look like bras that an elephant would wear if it had breasts. Can you picture my disappointment when I opened the parcel that my parents forwarded to me, to discover the gigantic pieces of scaffolding you had sent me? Padded, when your website clearly said non-padded?

So I now have two choices. I can either go on a six-month eating binge so that my breasts actually do start from my collar bone and I'll be glad of these monstrosities (though I could have bought something like that in Australia without incurring the postage charges and the psychic trauma that any transaction with the Post Office incurs) or I can return them to you. And yes, you'll refund the money, but will you refund all the money my family has spent shuttling these things around the world? I don't think so.

So, I'm out of pocket, thanks to the false advertising of your company. Next time I come to England to see my family and buy all those essential items that, inexplicably, you can't get here, I'll be buying my bras, in person, at BHS.

Regards,

Sprite



Bastards!

Tuesday 14 August 2007

Overcoming The Language Barrier

I had a moment of disorientation last Monday as I plumped myself in my swivel chair, bracing myself for the torment of another working week, and flipped back the pages of my Far Side Desk Calendar, for there under the ‘6’ were the words ‘Bank Holiday (Eire, Scotland, Australia – ACT, NSW)’. About to pack my phone and my fruit promptly back in my bag and head home for a leisurely day of baking and wine-drinking, I noticed that my co-workers were all at their desks, happily bellowing away into their phones.

“Ummmm, it says here on my calendar that it’s a bank holiday today” I ventured to the nearest one.
“Is it?” he replied, with disinterest.
“So….why are we here?” I said.
“Well, we don’t work for a bank, do we?” (With a look of, “You freak”)

And thus it was I learned the terrible truth that in Australia, bank holidays only apply to, well banks. Oh, shocking country! It’s only taken me three years of residence to find that out!

It’s a funny thing, cultural difference. When I first arrived in Australia, it seemed like I’d gone all the way around the world just to end up in another England - How delightful! The only real differences seemed to be things like the weather, the appearance of the houses, and the accents. But once I’d been here a while I realized that there were a lot more than initially meet the eye.

Take language, for example. People assume that Australian English is basically the same as English English, barring classic Aussie-isms such as ‘fair dinkum’ and ‘good on ya!’. So while I’d known from childhood that Americans had their own words for many everyday objects, it never occurred to me that Australians did, too. After a few weeks of losing the plot halfway through conversations, and not knowing how it happened, I figured out the following translations, British to Australian:

1. Pavement = Footpath: in England, a footpath is something charmingly unpaved, that you’d find in the countryside. For a while I thought the Man just had an unconventional turn of phrase, until I figured out that it actually is correct usage in Australia.

2. Shoplift = Shop steal: It’s been pointed out to me that ‘shoplift’ is a funny expression. But I’d argue that ‘shop steal’ doesn’t solve anything. I mean, how do you steal a shop?

3. Lounge, sitting room = Lounge room: nothing wrong with that. It’s informative!

4. Cool box = Esky: I like this word. You can imagine you have your very own little piece of Alaska, in a box to keep your beers cold. How modern and convenient!

5. Flip-flops = Thongs: I’d never heard of this usage until I came to Australia. It continued to make me jump long after I’d been told what it meant.

6. Pint, half-pint = Midis and schooners: Atfirst, I thought the Man was teasing me when we walked into the pub and he told me order a midi or a schooner. I expected to be laughed at. Doesn't a schooner of beer sound big! Imagine, Australians, requesting a dinghy or an oil tanker full of your beverage of choice. That is how silly I felt.

7. Duvet = Doona: I definitely thought the Man was making fun of me with this one! I didn’t doubt that it was a real Australian word, but I thought it must be some backwoods slang that city people wouldn’t actually use. I mean, it doesn’t sound serious, does it?

8. afternoon = Arvo: but it’s slang

9. Sweet = Lolly: In England, a lolly is a sweet on a stick. Short for lollypop. I still think it’s weird that people will indicate the chocolates on their desk and ask me if I want a lolly. Not that I'll ever say no…

10. Asphalt = Bitumen: Australians always talk about bitumen and the English about asphalt, and I guess they’re talking about the same stuff.

11. Baby = Bub: slang

12. Off-licence = Bottle shop

13. Flat = Unit

14. Serving = Serve: it annoys me every time some gushing advert person says ‘serve’ instead of ‘serving’. Why? It just does!

15. Clothes line? = Hoist – Australians invented that thing on a pole that goes in your back garden. To be honest, I don’t even know the English English for it. Is it clothes line? I never realized I didn’t have a name for it – it just never came up!

16. calorie = Kilojoule – I had a horrible moment near the beginning of my stay in Australia when I checked the food values on the back of some small thing I’d just eaten and thought I’d consumed about 750 calories. Luckily, kilojoules are not the same thing as calories, but what do these huge numbers actually mean to your hips? And who the hell talks about ‘counting kilojoules’? Guys, it’s calories you need to worry about! Not kilojoules!!

17. Abroad = Overseas: Again, these two words are not synonyms. But it is strange to think that Australians never, ever use the word ‘abroad’. If you use it they won’t understand and you have to repeat yourself using the word ‘overseas’.

18. Sun bathe = Sun bake: Freaks! How funny does this sound?! ‘Sun bathe’ is weird too, I suppose, but at least it’s accepted by the rest of the rest of the English-speaking world. Again, I was struck with wonder that an entire country could be using a phrase such as ‘sun bake’ and the rest of the world had never heard of it.

And these are only the polite ones!

Perplexed as I am by some of these Australianisms, I just know that next time I go back to England, I'll be unconsciously talking Aussie and wondering why nobody understands plain English! Interestingly, English people these days normally assume I'm Australian. This last fortnight I've been asked by English people - on two separate occasions - if I've ever been to the UK. Clearly, I'm successfully getting my tongue around the local lingo.

Bonza!

Thursday 9 August 2007

A Bit of Nostalgia

It seems winter is on the way out. For several mornings now, I haven’t had to put the heater on in the kitchen (though I did anyway because I’m a wimp) and last night I didn’t put it on at all. And my neck’s been taking a break from scarves. Pretty soon, those mornings on holiday when I had to get out of the shower to no heater and nearly threw up from the cold will all be a distant memory. Hurrah for spring!

It’s a bit scary, though, how quickly I’ve been getting through my Far Side desk calendar. It seems like no time at all since it was huge and fat. It feels like you can see time when you’ve got a desk calendar. Each leaf is a day, and you can flick through to see how many you have left.

Today’s picture is of a car full of lemmings on a road trip. The father lemming is barking at the children ‘Hey! I told you kids to knock it off back there!...Or so help me I’ll just take this car and drive it off the first cliff I come to!’ Inevitably, it reminds me of family holidays in the car when I was a child. Oh, nostalgic time!

My parents had a little red Fiat Uno with go-faster stripes along the side. They bought it second-hand, and I don’t believe they actually chose it on the strength of the stripes. They were handy, though, as we could always locate it easily in a car park. Being the make of car that it was, it was quite small in the back, though I never minded. I quite enjoyed being squeezed into a little cocoon where I could lose myself in a book with no fear of being told to go and do something productive. (And yes, I did get carsick). However, there were interruptions. Sooner or later a parent would cry, in tones of astonishment, “Emma’s reading a book! And missing all this lovely scenery!” and an involved argument would ensue between them as to whether I should be looking out the window and learning stuff, or whether the reading was excusable. How angry and hard-done-by I used to feel!

My father would always have Classic FM cranked up, deaf to our pleas for mercy. It used to irritate the hell out of all of us, even my mother, who loved classical music. There was something awful about being trapped in a small car and forced to listen to that up-beat, flutey music they always play, through really bad quality car speakers. There probably were other instruments playing, but all you could really hear was the flutes trilling, and the faint whine of violins. My father, being blessed with more than his fair share of eccentric mannerisms, would bellow at the beginning of each new piece, “Aaaaaaaaaah! This one! Wait for it….Da! Da da da da daaaaaah!”, singing along and waving one hand so that his man-bracelet made clinking sounds. Near the end of the music, complete silence was enforced in the car so that he could hear the DJ identify the composer in her smiley, chocolatey voice. They always played the same adverts, over and over, for 'Kuoni Travel' or something like that. How intimately we children knew and loathed Classic FM! Even today, though I enjoy classical music, I can only listen to so much in the car before I want to start whining “are we there yet?”

I shared the back seat with my two younger brothers. My middle brother was always in trouble for kicking the driver’s – my father’s – seat. Poor middle brother was never actually kicking the seat; it was just that the car was so small that even a runt-sized child’s knees would inevitably push into the seat in front. He always sat directly behind the driver, just as I always sat behind my mother, and baby brother sat in the middle. We didn’t always get along, we children, but certain things were understood.

We actually had a lot of fun times back there. We used to love it when we got onto those swervy, curvy roads that rural England specializes in. You know how normally, you unconsciously use your stomach muscles to stabilize you so you don’t get thrown around in cars and buses? We used to just let go. So a sharp turn to the right would have us all piled up onto middle brother, a left turn would have me plastered against the window, and poor baby brother would be trapped in the middle struggling for breath. Before my brothers got too big physically (I was always big, as I remember) I invented an extreme version of the sport, where we would slip off our shoes and crouch on the seat – still swathed dutifully in the seat belt – and really be thrown around. The hilarity of it all used to kill us! My father used to actually take bends faster sometimes, for our benefit. We were most grateful.

It was rare, though, that our parents really cottoned on to what was going on in the murky world of the back seat. Sometimes, we’d be silent for miles. Except that we weren’t actually silent; we’d be doubled up in secret stitches at some quirky thing they’d said. Did I mention mannerisms? Both my parents are a little odd, I think it is fair to say. They each had certain sayings peculiar to themselves, and every time they threw one into the conversation – unknowing and innocent – we evil teenagers would share a glance, shaking and hyperventilating with mirth until we were in a state of tearful hysteria. The parents would be unaware until my mother glanced behind her, to check if we were sleeping, perhaps, and there we’d be, faces contorted and gasping for oxygen. Poor parents. My rather pompous father was blithely unaware of most things but my mother used to suspect, but not understand the cause. Now that I’m writing this I feel sorry for the times we teased her. I miss her now that she’s thousands of miles away!

Another silent car game we used to play was fingernail fights, an experiment in extreme pain. Now there’s a game I bet you’ve never heard of. Middle brother always had very long, Nosferatu-like finger nails. (In fact, a fair bit of him was Nosferatu-like – he was razor thin then and still is.) I would grow a couple of nails in preparation for the trip. Then we’d hold hands across baby brother (who sat in the middle), each digging our nails into the other to see who would break first. It would nearly always be me. Nosferatu brother’s nails were so long and sharp! Part of the pleasure was then waiting to see how long it took for the red, crescent-shaped marks to fade. From time to time I’d show him the progress, and he’d smile in satisfaction. (I know you’re thinking how unhealthy this all is!) This pastime was very useful in museums, too. Our parents took us to some interesting, educational places where naturally, we were bored silly.

The most dangerous thing we ever did was called ‘flying lessons’. This was conceived when we were waiting in the car while our parents did something like looking round houses. They seemed to do that a lot. One of the brothers would hop into the front seat. Then I’d lie on my back, grab a brother and launch them into ‘flying’ position, where they’d be raised over me, arms out stretched, suspended as if flying through the air. I say dangerous, because eventually it was upgraded to a moving vehicle activity. God knows what the people in the cars behind us thought. And God knows how we did it – we must have been tiny! My mother was appalled the first time she caught us at our car acrobatics. On car trips from then on, we’d regularly be asked sternly from the front, “Children!!! Are you all sitting down? On your bottoms? Wearing your seatbelts?”

Things weren’t as fun in later years, when even the baby brother had left his early teens behind. The brothers would be lost in silent sulks, and we’d each be plugged into our own separate walkman, if only to drown out the relentless, jolly good cheer of Classic FM. Dark glowers would be exchanged as knees bumped and hips ground each other in the constant competition for space. Personal insults would be exchanged as to bottom size, or in Nosferatu brother’s case, hazardous sharpness of joints.

I suppose it was natural that eventually we’d burst out of that back seat and all go our own separate ways. But still, we had some good laughs along the way, and I am determined not to have children of my own. And if I do, you can bet we won’t be making many car trips!

Monday 6 August 2007

Things that are annoying me at work today:

  • Mr Shouty - This guy sits opposite me. He has a thunderously loud voice, especially on the phone, and annoying Canadian accent (not being anti-Canadian or anything. Everything about his voice is annoying). It’s kind of difficult to concentrate when vibrations are shaking my desk and making my whole body judder. You know how some high frequencies of sound can break glass, and low ones can cause avalanches? Mr Shouty’s vibrations cause a sudden need to stop working and surf the Internet instead. It’s bloody difficult to concentrate. Most of his job seems to involve calling people, so it’s a constant irritation. He’s also one of those sales guys who think it’s macho and virile to get pissed off with whoever he’s talking to, fire orders at them, and throw in a fair bit of foul language as well, to give an impression of barely-leashed, smouldering male aggression. You know, like the traditional Mills ‘n’ Boon hero that housewives used to swoon over in the ‘80s. (You don’t? Er…never mind then). It might be a bit more convincing if he wasn’t a grey-haired, desk-bound office worker. I mean, for God’s sake, he is impressing no-one, and there are LADIES PRESENT. Watch your mouth, Mr Shouty!

  • Ms Shouty – She sits just around the corner from me. Also loud on the phone, but instead of aggressive, she is chortly. Is it natural to be that mirthful all the time?

  • The unholy stench in the toilets – The entire company relocated to new offices recently. The ladies’ toilets on my floor are therefore brand new, like everything else here, and very nice, except for the stench of decay that hangs in the air. If ever I were looking for the mouth of Hell, the level 4 toilets would be on my list of places to start looking.

  • Microsoft Excel – I’ve just spent two solid hours trying to figure out how to make a graph in Excel, according to my boss’s specifications. I haven’t thought this hard since I was a student trying to figure out Spinoza’s theories of substance (and I didn’t do terribly well at that, either). It’s one of those things that I know is easy, but has had me sweating blood.

  • The noisy guy in the company gym. He goes ‘ooohhhh. HOOOOHHHHHH.’ The first time I heard him it was a distant, echoey sort of noise. I didn’t bother looking round because I assumed he must be hoisting weights and it really wasn’t worth falling off the treadmill. But this afternoon he was right behind me on another treadmill. Every time he suddenly went ‘OOOHHHHHH!!!’ I jumped right out of my skin. What is that all about? I will have to bring ear plugs next time and put them in, pointedly.

Friday 3 August 2007

Lost in Nice

Just visited the lovely Rosanna’s blog and was reminded of a time I got lost while on holiday in France and had a bit of a freak-out. You know those moments - they normally occur late at night - when you actually begin to question whether you’ll ever find your way home, or will be forced to spend the rest of your life on the streets reminiscing about the life you used to have.

I was 20, on holiday in Nice with two student friends. They were a couple, so one night I suggested they might want to spend some time together as boyfriend and girlfriend without me in the way. Despite being English, they agreed, so off I went on my own, for a wander down the wonderful Nice beachfront.

Just to digress for a moment: this really was a lame holiday. Upon arriving in Nice, I realized that a) it was a rocking town; b) it was the most expensive place I’d ever been to, heard of, even dreamed of; and c) as students, we clearly weren’t going to be able to do anything that wasn’t free. Furthermore, d) we were staying in Western Europe’s skankiest hotel, located on the main road from the airport to the city. I forget the name. It was something darkly ironic like ‘Hotel Splendide’ – if I remember it I’ll be sure to update this post to name and shame. The ground floor was actually a car showroom or something, so you had to go up a lift to get to Reception on the first floor, where the sulky receptionist would welcome you and wish you an unpleasant stay. At around 7:30 every morning there was a loud hammering on the bedroom door, the scary Bulgarian maids’ way of letting us know that they expected us to leave the room so they could ‘clean’. These hags would not be put off! At night, the highway that was our hotel forecourt was patrolled by the shadowy figures of Eastern European prostitutes. The cars would slow down as they passed our hotel, sometimes stopping to make a transaction with one of the ho’s, the exact same harridans who threw us bodily from our beds each morning, or so we believed. And finally, e) my friends, sweet though they were, were beginning to irritate the hell out of me.

So anyway, here I was alone one night walking along the promenade, taunted by the sounds of sweet jazz that spilling out of the side street bars, where people sat sipping 10 Euro glasses of beer and having a lovely time, so I did the only thing I could do; my anorexic wallet and I went for a walk.

Pretty soon I was hopelessly lost. It was getting late, definitely time for a girl on her own to go home. Every other day, my friends and I had walked the journey between our hotel and the town, as it wasn’t far, and it would have been fine except that I had no bloody clue as to where I was and I suddenly remembered the dark highway and the hookers. There was no question of me getting in a taxi, even if I could have found one. I mean, if beer was 10 Euros a go then I clearly couldn’t afford a taxi, and anyway I was pretty sure a French taxi driver would rather kill and butcher a foreigner than drive one somewhere.

Anyway, to cut a long story of psychological torment short, a middle aged man in shorts (I don’t remember much about him, so your getting everything I do) saw me faltering, asked me if was ok, and in the end he drove me home. How unbelievably nice was that?! He didn’t speak a word of English so we had a nice conversation in French. I understood about 1% of what he said, but my knowledge of grammar got me through so I was able to guess at which point in the conversation I was required to respond ‘non’ or ‘oui’. In other words, I got the framework of what he was saying, but not the content. I did manage to figure out that he worked for the tax office, though. That's one of the few things I understood.

So that’s the unbelievably suspenseful story of how I got lost in France. Sorry folks. Next time I’ll try and get lost in Tangiers and there’ll be some sex and violence for you. Urrrrrrr…Tangiers….*shudder*

Thursday 2 August 2007

Boy, am I exhausted this morning. Getting back into the work routine – working my arse off all day, having very little sleep, then getting up at a ridiculous hour in the morning – is killing me. I’m so tired, and it’s first thing in the morning. As I stumbled into the office I turned ideas over in my mind to enable me to get up later: wash hair night before, do make-up in toilets at work, buy breakfast en route at Wynyard Station (not necessarily as gross as it sounds). I should be able to extend my sleeping time until 7:00 – practically a lie-in!

In addition to sleep deprivation, my body is wracked with soreness from my little stretching session in the gym yesterday. I do my stretching in a room that adjoins the main gym area. I believe it’s meant for aerobics classes, but it’s always empty and private when I go. Anyway, just as I was sinking into the splits, one of the gym staff came in with somebody he was showing around. Obviously I couldn’t jump straight out of the stretch with a screech of pain like I usually would, so I had to stay there looking all serene. I’m paying for it now.

The good news is, I’ve now been at work for an hour and still haven’t done any real work. I just discovered this blog. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me to read it at work though. People are going to guess I’m reading something non-work-related when they see my facial contortions (the facial equivalent of the splits). Too funny!