Time Killing Kid

A right pen and ink

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:42:46 +0200

A friend of mine gave me some cautionary advice a few years ago about “not dipping your pen in the company ink”, by which he meant office affairs are best avoided. Then again, he could be a funny chap at times, so maybe he did mean it literally.

The occasional workplace dalliance I’ve become involved in, or attempted to become involved in, bears this advice out, especially the recent one with R / JC.

The one thing consolation about R was that although I’d been blown out, at least I’d been blown out by someone I work with only on an irregular basis.

On Monday a new recovery worker started.

A female recovery worker.

Who just happens to be my type.

Fuck.

I had the best part of an hour to talk to her on my own on Monday afternoon when we toured the local area to collect antipsychotics.

Frankly, she ticked far too many TKK boxes.

I wouldn’t normally wish this, but I hope and pray she has a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Or she’s celibate. Just please don’t let her be single. I’d rather not have unrequited lightning strike twice, but this time around be blown out by someone I work with on a regular basis.

On that note, R / JC wants to go for a drink with me again, and we’ve pencilled in a gig for next month. It took sheer bloody willpower to hold to the decision I made in Wales while on extended annual leave not to socialise with R outside of work.

On Thursday and Friday I have to work with both R and K (the new girl) on shift at the same time. Hopefully they’ll both get married before then (as long as it’s not to each other).

But at least on this occasion my emotional satnav is stirring.

Last night in work (I was on a sleep-in shift) I woke around 2am after a dream I was experiencing finished. In the dream a helicopter had taken off and was flying across a city, when it had suddenly stopped and dropped in a direct vertical plummet until it hit the ground.

I briefly wrestled with the meaning of what my unconscious had cast up, and then it struck me precisely what the helicopter’s fate had been.

It crashed and burned.

Comments

I wanna be sedated

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:13:23 +0200

Recently I had a medication review at the GP surgery after dropping in my repeat prescription for diazepam. In truth, my sciatica has been fading pretty quickly since it was started. However, I haven’t failed to notice the secondary benefits that come from benzodiazepines.

The doctor who reviewed my medication was not the same one who prescribed it; and it’s always frustrating having to retread your original consultation, especially to someone less sympathetic and generous with their prescription pad.

Despite the fact that the doc grew up in the same part of Wales as my good self, she wanted to keep hold of the diazepam she was slinging, whereas I was adamant that she stick to the original one-month prescription plan and re-up me forthwith.

I left the appointment with my repeat prescription feverishly clutched in my hand. This shit is the bomb!

I have now constructed my own prescribing guide to the current circumstances in my life:

Going out on the lash and feeling like giving the finger to medical advice and drinking while on sedative medication: 6mg

Evening jogging session 2mg

Work football tournament: 8mg

Sleep-in shift with colleague you’ve started to detest and have spread a nickname round the office for (Scrappy Doo): 6mg

Work disciplinary hearing: 6mg

Day shift with co-worker who recently ripped your heart out and tossed it into a bramble bush: 4mg, possibly rising to 6mg if heart flutters start

Insomnia: 2mg

Hairdresser appointment: 2mg

Diazepam: is there nothing it can’t take the edge off?

Apart from withdrawal symptoms.

Comments

How a weekend with Rooney and Row left me with a dose of the clap

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:20:00 +0200

Well if only it had been the clap, which would have been far less embarrassing than the ‘injury’ I actually sustained over the weekend:

Yep, I managed to bruise the palm of my right hand after clapping too hard while at Old Trafford on Sunday. The only consolation is it deposed my previous most embarrassing injury, where I sustained nerve damage to my fingers through carrying shopping bags (and me being the son of a coal miner n’ all). Evidently, my hands are nowhere near as hard as my heart is reputed to be.

Personally, I blame it all on Sir Bobby Robson. The minute’s applause for the great man started way too early and the emcee had to pretty much abandon his tribute and join in with everyone else. Before then there’d already been sustained applause while Nemanja Vidic and Federico Macheda collected their respective player of the year awards from last season. Then the mighty Reds made their way onto the pitch; Fergie made his showman’s entrance. The match hadn’t even kicked off and my hands were on fire. It started to feel like a banquet in 1930s Russia when Stalin was the guest of honour. Ovations would go on interminably as no one dared to be the first person to be seen to stop clapping in front of Uncle Joe.

Thankfully I was in the, er, hands of a sympathetic companion, who didn’t induce panic in me later by saying “I think it’s spreading! It might be gangrenous!” I, of course, felt completely reassured at this point, and didn’t leave the pub table to wash my hands in the gents in the vain hope it might have been northern grime on my soft southern hands causing the marks, rather than self-inflicted wounds caused by clapping too hard.

Not to say that La Row is completely lacking in her hospitable side, crashing in her front room while I got to kip in her bedroom. And what a bed! The instant I saw it I started having flashbacks to the beds I obviously did not see in late 1970s pornographic movies. For the record, I will say it was the biggest and longest... sleep I’ve ever had, which is more than could be said for Lady Guinness in the morning, woken up far too early for her liking by my repeated enquires of “Are you decent?”. I clearly heard her say “yes” the first time, but was tickled too much to hear her becoming more exasperated in her assertion that she was “decent” to stop continually asking the question.

As for Manchester, it obviously helped being guided round by an experienced local, who on leaving Old Trafford didn’t turn round to me and say “I’m not sure how to get back from here”. It was also pretty cool to sample Manchester nightlife, and not find out that the best place to be getting pissed in Didsbury late on a Saturday night is on a wall outside the Mtwenty (I always have had a taste for the ‘high' life). And it’s nice to get a decent pint in when on a session, and not have someone return with a round of the black stuff and say “actually, the Guinness here isn’t up to much”.

Row, I must return the favour next time you’re in my beloved north Lahnden. We can start at the bar of the motel in Finsbury Park where a few weeks ago two lesbian lovers made a suicide pact and poisoned themselves. The first round of Changs are most definitely on me.

But despite the dodgy beer, bars and bed, I had a bloody good laugh over the weekend, and had to remind myself at one point how only a fortnight ago I’d been totally in the doldrums. So ta very much for being a good friend, m'dear, even if I did have a chorus from a very dodgy late 1980s Texas song going through my head for much of the train journey back as a consequence. I’d give you a standing ovation if it wasn’t for the fact my hands would hurt too much.

Comments

I should be so lucky

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:53:31 +0200

Although I wouldn’t have believed it a month ago, there is an upside to sciatica.

To some extent this depends on how sympathetic your GP feels, and how happily they’ll write you a prescription for benzodiazepines.

To say that July was not the greatest month I’ve had is something of… an understatement. Personally, professional, physically, romantically – the gods can fuck with you in so many different ways.

I could list all the various things that happened to me in July. The reason I’m electing not to is it was so bloody painful seeing them all collected together in a single paragraph that I had to delete it straight away.

After initially being prescribed entry-level pharmaceuticals to deal with the sciatica, I returned to the GP after about five days for something with more pep. In my defence, I couldn’t walk for longer than 10 minutes without having to sit down, and I’m absolutely desperate to play some part in our annual football tournament at the end of the month.

Being offered a sicknote and a month’s supply of diazepam was almost too good to be true. Unfortunately, work commitments being as they are I really couldn’t take the former, but I almost managed to forget the sciatica for thirty minutes as I limped off to the pharmacy for the latter.

The reaction from certain colleagues in work today when I accidentally let slip what I was being prescribed was as if I’d won a pharmaceutical lottery.

My favourite response was an envious look and a wistful “you’re so lucky”. I felt less lucky two minutes later when same colleague informed me I had to complete a ten-page risk assessment form about my prescription pills and give my manager an update on my benzo-addled state.

He asked me with a less than professional gleam in his eye how they were making me feel. I was tempted to say: “you know in the disciplinary meeting last week when I didn’t appear to give a shit. That’s kinda how they’re working for me”.

I instead sensibly phrased it thus: “It kind of feels like nothing really matters. Not in an empty way, just that I can't be ruffled right now”.

Him: “Wow. That’s so lucky!”

Truthfully, some of the physio exercises I’ve been doing for the sciatica over the last 72 hours have done more for it than the diazepam, but the secondary benefits of stretching only go so far. I had to swallow a smirk when my doctor agreed to prescribe diazepam because I was more than aware that this was going to be treating more than sciatic nerve pain.

After R’s rejection all sorts of melancholy content had started emerging from my mind, and were finding themselves splurged onto Word documents for future blog posts. Probably the worst example of this was my excavation of a relationship dumping I received in 1999 and comparing it to a sniper’s headshot.

Self-indulgent wallowing aside, it was not helping, in the same way building R up into the “Jewish Cleopatra” for the past three months was far from helpful. Thanks to my own purple prose and mythologizing I’d given her superhuman powers of rejection by the time I finally got her out for a drink. I regretted the day I’d ever started committing my thoughts of her to blog, not because there was the inevitable risk I’d have to describe a public rejection, but she’d become a fantasy figure and almost better than reality.

I’m hoping more alternative treatments (the start of the football season and an extended holiday) will wean me off the benzos in the medium term, although for the time being I’m going to keep dropping the repeat prescriptions into the surgery and carry on feeling “lucky”.

Comments

Where would we be without wishful thinking?

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:14:54 +0200

I remember working in the same department as a consultant clinical psychologist who specialised in cognitive therapy for psychosis. I always thought he had a particularly cool job and an introduction that must have gone down a storm at parties (“I’m K. I work in psychosis”).

Fairly frequently, I have to dabble with psychosis, but the more day-to-day psychological-type work I’m caught up in involves sensitively responding to emotive situations, but also accepting how subjectively life is experienced.

Even a generous amount of left-field life events isn’t preparation enough for some of the situations that occur. In the past year I’ve seen the dawning realisation on someone’s face that they’re about to be sectioned (and am probably going to see that same expression on the same person’s face in a few weeks); the thousand-yard stare of another being tormented by critical auditory hallucinations; or just having to adjust to how simple daily activities can be a major challenge to someone with major mental health needs. The following video is a pretty good simulation of how someone’s reality can be distorted by psychotic experiences:

Unlike in general conversation, the question “How are you feeling?” is nearly always of particular relevance where I work. It becomes second nature to delve into areas of someone’s life that would normally be considered off limits. I often forget this when chatting with people outside of the job and have to remind myself that the “special permission” (as one psychologist described it to me) to go into those areas no longer applies.

As workers within the project we’re encouraged to keep access to our own personal lives strictly compartmentalised (“professional boundaries”) when working with service users. This can often seem very one-sided when you’re expecting an individual to disclose extremely sensitive personal information while being off limits yourself.

At the weekend I had to sit through an emotional interlocution of my own with R and face up to last week’s events. We’d had about 25 minutes of having to work together as if nothing had happened last Thursday, but after we’d found a quiet spot in one of the upstairs kitchens I decided to break cover.

I think it’s fair to say, much like on the night in question, she didn’t exactly let me down gently. Her recall of a sequence of events that were misty in my own mind was unsparing, and I accepted as true her account of actions that I couldn’t quite remember myself. After a while, I didn’t so much wave a white flag as climb out of my trench and walk slowly towards the crossfire. I figured that if I’m expecting my key clients to be open about difficult circumstances in their lives I had to take the same journey:

Me: Wasn’t it obvious I was attracted to you?

Her: On reflection there were a couple of occasions which now seem obvious. (Slightly chastising) But what made you think I was attracted to you?

At this point I had a particularly bittersweet Wilco track floating through my head, and pretty much sighed out the title as my response:

Me: Wishful thinking...

Maybe I should have included it with the MP3s I gave her...

Comments

Voodoo chili

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:40:25 +0200

So why didn’t I see it coming? How did I allow my emotional satnav to send me into a ditch?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

At least a small part of my mind had some inkling where this was going to lead to.

Recently I had been using the phrase ‘carrying a torch’ to describe my predicament, without being fully aware of its precise definition.

Looking it up, the most frequently listed description is “to secretly love someone who does not love you”. Now I certainly didn’t / don’t love R, and it probably is just a silly phase I’m going through, but my understanding of the phrase was that you covertly liked someone and they were simply unaware of it, not that the feeling continued in the face of rejection.

It’s never pretty, rejection, and at some stage almost everyone will experience its sting. In the past month I’ve been rejected and accepted by the same person in the same evening (try and work out which emotion you’re going home with that evening), and the acceptance certainly didn’t balance out the earlier rejection.

From my own experience, some rejections have been pretty obvious and almost wilful on my part. However, the ones that sneak up and mug you are another story. I still remember vividly being dumped by an ex in 1999 and a vertigo-esque feeling gripping my body. You try desperately hard to control your facial expressions at those moments, but it’s a losing battle. The worst is the walk of shame away from it all. Walking down the street last night on my own was pretty demoralising, especially so as my sciatica decided to reawaken from its alcohol-induced slumber and slice through my hamstrings.

As anyone blessed with more than a trace of empathy in their character who has been in the only slightly less depressing position of rejecting someone knows, there aren’t any comforting words to say at that point. You don’t want to hear anything about “putting all your eggs in one basket” (even if it is true), and you certainly don’t want to be asked “are you going to get angry with me?” I’m certainly not going to do the latter, I thought at the time, but I will be kicking a lot of lampposts on the way home and tossing my cigarette lighter onto someone’s roof.

Making a play for someone I work with was always going to be a high risk manoeuvre. As R only does weekend shifts we don’t actually work together that frequently, but it’s deeply unfortunate that we have to do a shift together this weekend. I get the impression I'll still be feeling quite raw when we meet.

Right now I feel stunned, in much the same way I did for 80 minutes of this year’s Champions League final. After seeing United rip into Barcelona for the first ten minutes it was devastating to see Eto’o suddenly score in Barca’s first attack, and then spend the rest of the match thinking ‘this really wasn’t how I was expecting the evening to turn out’. The walk back to the tube station from the pub at the end of the evening was like seeing that Eto’o goal going in again, and again, and again.

To try and shake off the blues I am going to cook one of my speciality chili recipes this evening, which I’ve christened voodoo chili, in honour of R’s juke box faux pas from last night. As we were making our selections she decided on a Hendrix number, pronouncing the Chile from Voodoo Chile in the same way the country Chile is pronounced. I was in such full-on gentleman mode at that point I resisted the opportunity to take the piss, although I no longer feel bound by such decorum a day later.

I registered at a GP practice this morning in order to get my sciatica pharmaceutically treated. While there, I had the obligatory healthcare screen for new patients by the nurse. Towards the end of our consultation she asked if I needed any condoms...

I just smirked and said probably not for the foreseeable future.

Comments

Just my imagination (running away with me)

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:25:15 +0200

“I thought that this was just going to be a friendly drink.”

Hmm. There was a point in the evening where I was going to mention that, as we've now recruited a full staff team, come September / October, JC won’t be allocated any more shifts at work.

Suddenly, it seems like a blessing (once we’ve got this weekend’s shift together out of the way)...

Comments

CD business

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:56:15 +0200

A certain someone has asked me to put together a CD for her, so this weekend I’m having my High Fidelity moment and rummaging through the ol’ collection to put together something worthy of entry in my top 5 compilations for grrls I’m very, very interested in.

Few things are bigger deal breakers than a potential beau’s taste (or lack of it) in music. I remember going back for “coffee” with someone and browsing the CDs at her flat, shuddering as I realised I was on the verge of shagging someone with Craig David, George Michael and Robbie Williams albums in their collection (Bramble’s saving grace was that at least she had a Calexico CD in the hovel she resided at).

There wasn’t going to be any future in stepping out with someone whose record collection was worse than my mother’s. My mum has gone through some bizarre phases in her music taste, from Cliff Richard to Mel C (“the only one out of the Spice Girls who can really sing!”), to Will Young and, ahem, 5ive (just don’t ask...). And now she likes Amy Winehouse...

I’m not sure if I’ve ever gone out with someone whose musical taste I’ve felt entirely comfortable with. We all have our guilty pleasures but... Charlotte Church? Mott the Hoople? Smashing Pumpkins. No, no and NO!

Of course, this CD is in many ways more for me than her - all she’s going to do is listen to it. I’m the one agonising over how I should start things off (high-tempo opener or a faded-up slow burner?), whether any songs smack of tokenistic inclusion (can’t let it be too many white boys playing guitars and singing harmonies, right?) or wondering how much my taste has actually broadened since back in the day the sixteen-year-old TKK was head to toe in denim and ducking bottles of piss at the Donnington Monsters of Rock festival.

There’s also the risk of putting songs on there which might have some real personal significance and then having them summarily dismissed (I’d think I’d sooner hear “I tend to think of you as a friend...” than having my favourite tunes pissed on).

As I also really like this person, I’m screening the lyrics of the tracks in case it comes across as some big exercise in subliminality (the last thing I’d want to do with someone I really like is give her the impression I really like her, right?). So songs mentioning love n’ stuff are out. Songs about suicide, death, eating disorders and life in prison are in.

Hmm. Maybe I should just play it safe and save exposing my soul for another day.

*downloads the torrent for Mel C’s Northern Star album from the Pirate Bay and readies a blank CD-R *

Comments

I want to hold your hand

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:49:48 +0200

So, to cut a potentially long(ish) story short, I asked her out for the drink, and she said yes.

Thanks to all the words of advice, encouragement and piss taking since my last post. I would like to make it clear to y’all that I do have some previous experience in this area, and have been asking women out for drinks since I was at least 31.

Yesterday was my seventh consecutive day in work (hooray for shift work!), and one I took rather leisurely (a rare luxury in an understaffed psychiatric project).

I pretty much spent the last hour of my shift playing pool with JC and, admittedly, was not trying particularly hard to win. When someone you’re carrying a torch for beams that much every time they pot a ball, you find yourself deliberately missing a few shots and even losing the odd game.

My blissful hour was only interrupted once by a hilarious intervention from SGH, who walked into the room, saw us playing and said:

“Alright TKK. Alright sweetheart. [to JC] I’m only calling you sweetheart because I can’t remember your name. I’m not bent. I’m not gay. I can remember men’s names, just not women’s. They’ve always been jealous of me, ever since I was a young woman...”

Eventually, I ran out the winner in our games, and being a gentleman I shook her hand. However, when I attempted to release her hand, she held mine tighter, and so I held onto hers, resulting in us holding hands for an inordinately long time. I don’t know whether it qualified as a ‘moment’, but it certainly felt that what started as a handshake finished as something else. She then decided she wanted another game, although we only got halfway through as one of my key clients needed something from JC and my shift had now finished.

Our rota for July is due out next week. *crosses fingers*

Comments

Waking up and getting up has never been easy

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:02:42 +0200

Punctuality is not my forte.

I was a pretty punctual person until my early 20s, although by that point, after living in London for a few years, I decided to wave the white flag and join the fashionably late brigade. Anyone who's ever stepped into the London Underground Bermuda Triangle and been reported missing by the friends will know the frustration at seeing your life ebb away while stuck in a stranger's armpit on a Central Line carriage.

However, today I knew I had to be on time, as this was going to the first of only two opportunities I had this month to catch the Jewish Cleopatra.

Or so I thought.

So I pack my overnight bag (I'm doing a sleep-in shift at work tonight - joy!) early. I got in the shower, early. I shave early, etc. Basically, I was Mr Early today.

I left my flat (early). Stepping out onto the street from TK Towers a No.29 bus passed me.

It was too early.

Despite being too cool to run for buses, I managed to make the bus as the driver decided to nip into a shop to get a drink.

So I arrive at work.

Early.

I drop my bag upstairs, stroll down to the staff office and walk in through the door.

Early.

Five minutes early. Result! Not too suspicious...

Except...

She's not there.

I feign innocence and ask the other staff in the office who else did the sleep in shift, knowing full well I'd pined at the rota for many an afternoon since the new shifts were announced, and how few she'd been given. Thankfully, she hadn't gone (early), so I go upstairs to unpack some of my stuff.

And then she walks into the upstairs office, looking like Horses-era Patti Smith mixed with Cleopatra.

Be still my beating heart.

I knew it was going to be a brief chat, as when you finish a sleep-in shift you really want to leave the place sharpish, but I also knew I really wanted to ask her for a drink and I only had two chances to do that this month.

But... it just really wasn't the time. As much as I want to ask her out, I want it to look vaguely natural when I do get round to it. So I let it go and said at the end of our chat: "see you soon. Whenever that's going to be".

She replied: "I'm sure it won't be that long, TK".

I checked the rota downstairs when I got in, expecting the July rotas to be out today, as promised, which of course meant they were delayed until next week. While I sort of expected that, I didn't expect the extra bank shift booked in towards the end of the week, overlapping rather nicely with one of mine.

Which just happened to be filled by the person I broke the tardy habits of a lifetime for today.

It seems my lobbying at the team meeting on Tuesday had had an immediate impact.

The rest of the day went by in something of a haze. Having to work a nine-hour shift with a co-worker you really don't get on with is pretty tough, especially when you've seen someone you swoon over leave the building.

Later in the evening as I played pool with one of the residents, True by Spandau Ballet came on the radio. For the next three and a half minutes I was in another world, dreaming of thrills in my head and pills on my tongue, forever being punctual and True!

This finding deeper meaning in classic 80s pop songs can only mean one thing...

She's going to politely turn down my offer of a drink (whenever I get round to making it).

Comments

Life imitating animation

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:17:59 +0200

Almost three years ago I uploaded a post about fancying cartoon characters, namely Jane Lane from Daria:

As I put it, back in the day:

Now I hadn't watched any Daria episodes for some time, but it suddenly dawned on me that someone I had pulled and been quite smitten with a couple of years ago was Jane in all but the hair (don't think outside of a cartoon you could quite pull that hairstyle off).

I have now met someone who does uncannily resemble Jane, right down to pulling off a similar type of hairstyle (kind of like a Jewish Cleopatra). What’s even more uncanny is that, just like Jane, she happens to spend most of her spare time painting.

I’m finding working with someone I’m deeply smitten with hard to get my head around. Considering I spent far too many 9-5s sitting next to the farmer’s wife lookalike, someone who looked like they’d received an arse transplant from a cow, it’s no surprise that the semi-regular company of someone nubile and artistic has gotten me all in a tither.

Our employer has a pretty intolerant policy on staff relationships, to the point where there’s an apocryphal story that goes around the office about “friendship coffees” having to be declared after they’ve taken place.

Unfortunately for me, the Jane Lane lookalike only works part-time due to her other job in a gallery. Therefore my efforts to reach the friendship coffee stage are at the mercy of our shift patterns.

Personally, I think my manager has cottoned on to my tither and for the rest of June has rota’d myself and the Jewish Cleopatra apart, to the point where if one of us is starting a shift the other is finishing it, and vice versa.

The only chance I have of seeing her for the next few weeks is by either being on time or, shock horror, early for work. And as anyone who’s spent 60 minutes in Covent Garden choking on incense fumes while waiting for me to stroll over knows too well, punctuality is not my strong point.

At our team meeting today I will be raising the issue of staff shortages and insisting, nay demanding, that we increase the amount of shifts on offer to our bank (in-house temp) workers over the summer.

A hidden agenda, you say? How rude!

Comments

(sex) references available on request

Thu, 14 May 2009 12:52:55 +0200

I just had to.

Had to.

I emailed Mr Smith for his sex references.

And he got back to me pretty, pretty quickly:

Anna,

Thank you for considering my application, please find my references enclosed as requested.

Reference 1:

"When I met Bill, he was 16 years old and had never had a girlfriend before. I introduced him to the pleasures of mutual masturbation, although we never had penetrative sex. After a shaky start, Bill soon became very adept at bringing me to orgasm and we spent many fun-filled hours pleasuring each other in my room.

I would have no hesitation in recommending Bill for as a fuck buddy, friend with benefits or even one night stand."

Marion Murphy

Reference 2:

"When I met Bill, he was very adept at massage and bringing to orgasm through clitoris manipulation with his fingers. However, he had never had oral or penetrative sex, and I had to introduce him to the pleasures of both. A quick and eager learner, he soon discovered what I did (and more importantly didn't) enjoy and always took great time and effort to ensure a mutually pleasureable experience when having sex."

Jospehine Smith

I trust this is satisfactory and look forward to your response.

Bill

If anyone can think of any questions I can ask him for his interview, do let me know...

Comments

The rules of attraction

Wed, 13 May 2009 14:10:13 +0200

A colleague in work recently discussed with me her experiences of internet dating. Like most people I’ve discussed internet dating with they’ve (a) not found true love and (b) have had negative experiences.

By the truckload.

Despite this, internet dating is widespread, and in terms of popularity (and success rate) it’s probably up there with, say, dieting.

Realising potential blog fodder, I decided to get in on the act.

But with a slight twist.

Rather than taking a hammer to my own self-esteem, I uploaded a fake female profile to a dating site, reasoning that there’s only so much fun I want to have at my own expense; and I really needed to guarantee some material for the planned post.

But where to upload the profile?

There could only be one place.

www.adultfriendfinder.com, as recommended by BCUK’s own resident lover of the fairer sex, Safriz.

Sex contact sites purport to offer a world of instant shags, all available within a few clicks of a mouse button. But the truth is far from that.

The ratio of heterosexual men to women on sex contacts sites is estimated at more than ten fellas to every chick. So whereas men go on contact sites in the expectation of finding a population of gagging for it gals, the reality is that women can afford to be even more selective and picky than they might be in real life.

And boy do they need to be.

To guarantee an abundant response I made clear I was (a) just out of a relationship and ready to let my hair down and (b) was up for anything.

Plus I had my super sexy profile pic.

But before ‘my’ sexy snap was approved by the site administrators, my inbox heaved like ’my’ corseted bosom.

While I was prepared for cock shots and the like (even though these and phone numbers are supposed to be initially screened on AFF), I was quite taken aback by the messages that came my way (pun intended).

Letting down the narf Lahhden massive big time was Soppy4u5:

hi ladies am jason in north london looking for sexy nostrings fun come over and lets meet i love to have fun in the outdoors on the bus train park bench as people are about or maybe we meet at the bar we betend we dont know each other we might even end up in the pub toilets

Jason clearly has a different idea of enjoying the great ourdoors than most.

Or maybe you ladeez would prefer a south Londoner, like SElondonse10:

Sexy photo i would love to have fun with you, do you like a big dick x

Perhaps something more exotic might be your thing. All the ladeez know the French are so romantic, like Bigfrenchcock3:

Fancy a taste of France

By that I don’t think he had a baguette in mind. Or maybe he did...

After a few days of scanning the messages in my inbox, I was exhausted. While it’s nice to feel popular, it started to feel somewhat overwhelming. Some messages would be short and to the / their point, whereas others would be thesis length or demanding why I hadn’t replied, like John’s message below:

Hello again Anna,

Do hope this message finds you keeping well

I must admit that I am truly most disappointed you have sadly decided not to respond to the lovely messages I sent you and especially to the long one I sent you yesterday, not quite sure why though, as I feel that at the very least, it deserved a nice thanks-but-no-thanks such a real shame indeed

I was actually truly hopeful about you/us if I'm honest, as for some odd reason, had a really strong warm feeling about you since coming across your profile. Guess I may have been wrong about this one after all... oh well, c'est la vie I guess

Anyway, I nevertheless wish you all the very best and hope you find whatever it is you are searching for.

If you regret not getting back to me, then you know how to reach me.

Needless to say that if I have got the wrong end of the stick (which if course may well be the case) then I am truly sorry and would really love to still hear back from you

Love,

John xxxx

I was tempted to send a Dear John letter of my own, stating I had about 300 messages in my inbox, so no offence if I might have overlooked his first message and not replied. The other notable thing about John’s rather submissive message after checking his initial emails was that he had written in the hope of being my dom!

One other repeated theme throughout the messages was men stating how much they loved to give oral, often within the first, second and third line (assuming there was actually a line beyond the first and the cock shot). We may well be in a recession, but I don’t recall cunnilingus being rationed. Maybe Nuts and Zoo have provided a ‘How to bag a bird’ booklet in a recent issue, and have put “say you love to go down on ‘em” at the top, but a large amount of the messages I received seemed to be under the impression they were offering date dynamite simply by saying this.

Of all the messages I received, one stood out by a long way, although receiving a sex CV does mean you stand out amongst the cock shots. I’d like to think it was meant to be tongue in cheek, but Bill Smith’s profile picture made me think otherwise:

SEXUAL EDUCATION

1979–1985 Masturbation – virtually constantly – passed with honours.

EXPERIENCE
1985–1992 Mutual Masturbation with various partners – Improved over time.
1992–2007 Mutual Masturbation, Oral and One-on-One sex with Woman who became my wife.
2007-Present Sexually Inactive.
2009 Signed up to Passion.com in order to alleviate the above.

INTERESTS
I love to lick and suck a clitoris to point of orgasm. I am a complete gentleman and have never, apart from a few mishaps early in my career, had an orgasm before my partner.
I am both attentive to a woman’s needs and very demanding of my own. My ultimate ambition is to complete a “grand slam” (oral, pearl necklace, “doggie” and anal) in one night with one person. Please note, my cock never goes anywhere my tongue hasn't been first. I would, obviously, ensure that person had more orgasms than me; I am very proficient with battery operated toys.

Ah, yes. Us guys all have those ‘mishaps’ early in our 'careers...'

Bill even put references down, one of whom was his wife. As this was the wife who has stopped having intercourse with him, it might be worth obtaining if you’re thinking of offering him the job.

Due to the volume of responses I refrained from getting into a dialogue with anyone, although on one occasion I couldn’t resist, after Niceguyforu10 told me:

you need a good sapnking x

To which I replied:

You need a good spellchecker.

After a week or so I’d had around 3000 page views and hundreds of messages. I hadn’t even gone on a date, let alone got laid, and I was fucked. Despite getting a good insight into the shag psyche of my own sex I hadn’t been too appalled, until I received a message from the appropriately named Darkthoughts 32.

Mr Darkthoughts decided to send me some erotica, as writing pornographic material was a hobby of his. I wasn’t quite prepared for the 2500 word gangbanger tale he sent me, which, ahem, climaxed with the following paragraph:

You are handcuffed back to the headboard and your legs held apart by tying your ankles to a rope running under the bed. Over the next few hours we all use you as our toy. You are fucked endless times, your swollen minge dripping all over the bed. You are covered in spunk, over your face, tits and hair. The final act if for you to receive two cocks being forced into your pussy simultaneously whilst you suck on the 11 incher.

This was the first message I received from him. I did check my profile again in case I'd inadvertently typed "love being gangbanged" instead of "GSOH!!!", but hadn't in fact made this rookie error.

Now, guys, imagine going up to a woman in a bar and launching into the above spiel within the first minute. Since when did managing a sex life online mean that it’s ok to skip the subtleness and gentlemanly conduct?

After wading through messages like the above for a few more days I began carving notches into my misanthropic bedpost. It was like being made to watch Ron Jeremy’s entire filmography and having to see every single one of his cumfaces in slowmotion, with a director’s commentary.

Still, I wasn’t the only one finding the virtual world of sex contacts hard to deal with. One guy messaged me to complaint that:

So i recently joined having heard good things about this site, only to discover it is full of crack heads and wierdo's.

One message finally tipped me over the edge and broke my no rude messages vow. I think there’s only so many photos of smug balding thirtysomething men and their cockshots you can look at before going all Andrea Dworkin.

Being sent a gloating 'let’s fuck in a hotel while my wife thinks I’m at a conference' fantasy convinced me I should retaliate with one of my own:

Dear fitman4u12

Glad to hear you have an active imagination! I thought I’d send you a fantasy of my own...

You arrive home, somewhat disheartened, after being stood up by your potential NSA extramarital affair fuck buddy. As you walk in through the door you can hear laughter and deep moans coming from the bedroom. You race up the stairs, into the marital boudoir, and find Russell Brand fucking your wife up the ass. Jonathan Ross is taking pictures, and sweating... although manages to get a great shot of your crestfallen face for his private collection as you enter the room.

Now, how was that for you?

Comments

You don’t have to be mad to work here (but if you’re a resident it’s essential criteria)

Thu, 07 May 2009 12:11:11 +0200

Since I’ve been working with the mentalists, I often get people asking me what it’s like at the project, probably having some image in their head of a third sector Bedlam, with residents foaming at the mouth, drugged-up, shackled-up and hallucinating purple dragons and daemons.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Overall, it’s been pretty settled since I’ve been there (eight months and counting), although my definition of ‘settled behaviour’ may now be slightly more flexible than the average person’s.

But for a long time I’ve held the view that we’re probably one resident / staff member away from chaos, so delicate is the psychological ecostructure at the project.

Last week SGH made her return after more than eight months on an acute inpatient ward, probably only slightly less manic than when she went in. She was admitted after an incident involving a taxi, where she may well have grabbed the wheel, and her intention may well have been to crash it, and there may well have been a member of staff in the back seat (as part of SGH’s updated risk management plan, members of staff no longer ride in taxis with her).

SGH received a diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder around thirty years ago, and since that time has probably spent half of her life on inpatient wards. She rapidly cycles between periods of mania and depression, even while on high doses of medication.

The majority of the residents at the project have received a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and tend to lack energy and motivation (part of the ‘negative’ symptomatology of schizophrenia), but this is not something SGH could be accused of.

A conversation with her (and I use the word ‘conversation’ quite loosely here) is like
getting a one-woman rendition of the Eastenders omnibus inside five minutes.

Her conversations don’t go off in tangents, they jack-knife. Her internal editor has left his post and allowed the copy boys to go all purple prose with her stream of consciousness.

As I’m new to SGH, I’m a novelty, and she’s still trying to measure me up. She approached me towards the end of quite a fraught shift last week and asked me how I got the job. After politely listening to my response for ten seconds, apropos of nothing, she hurtled into the following tale:

“I was fifteen, no, sixteen, working in the factory at the time, really pretty n’ everything, and this electrician came up to me and asked me for a drink, wasn’t into any of that, was only sixteen, no, fifteen, but he asks me for a drink and I think ‘ooh, maybe, maybe’, but I was only sixteen, no, fifteen, at the time, prettiest girl in the factory, and this electrician asked me to come out for a drink, and I was only fifteen, no sixteen, at the time, and I didn’t do anything of that, but he asked me out to go to for a drink, and all the other girls in the factory were jealous of me, really jealous, cos’ I was so pretty, prettiest girl of all the factory, and he’d gone and asked me out, and they were so jealous, and they wanted to get a knife and SLIT MY GUTS OUT!”.

And to think I used to spend my working day sitting next to somebody who would say nothing all day (apart from the occasional report of eating a crab paste sandwich the previous evening).

Comments

Ladybird killing kid

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:45:41 +0200

It’s now been a month since I moved into TKK Towers, and it’s (almost) summertime and the livin’ is easy.

Occasionally, I do have to pinch myself that, yes, it’s 10.30pm and the people in the neighbouring flats are either asleep or quietly going about their business. This is in contrast to my last place when people would start arriving at 10.30pm to get the business of the day / evening going.

The biggest problem I’ve had to deal with so far was a ladybird nest in the window frame, but a few well aimed swats with a newspaper put paid to those squatters.

But it’s been so quiet on my floor since I moved in that I began to suspect that something was not quite right, and my suspicions were soon confirmed.

It turned out that part of the reason for the deathly quiet was death itself, as someone in the flat two flats down had dozed off into the big sleep. But compared to life with the Fat Fucks, I would have preferred a decomposing neighbour to them.

This got me thinking as to the ideal neighbour I could have in the block.

While there might be some cachet about having someone fashionable or famous living next to you, the chances are they’d have people over quite frequently, have parties and make a fair amount of noise, and might even have sex occasionally. This is no good to me when I’m at a stage in my life where I want to have the bare minimum of noise disturbance from neighbours, but can’t afford a detached house.

What I’m looking for is someone out of step with the times, has no sex life, a greatly reduced social circle, dislikes the TV and likes reading. That way, I could take a nap at any time of the day (without earplugs) and not have to listen to Eastenders reverberating through the wall, or shagging.

This sounded perfect, until I realised that under those criteria this man could qualify as my new neighbour:

Hmm. Anyone know how to raise the dead?

Comments

Last night a sack barrow saved my life

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:52:57 +0100

Ok, maybe not as ‘yoof’ as having a DJ saving my life, but without the wonders of a selfless sack barrow I’d be walking as bow-legged as Mjohnson is this morning with his “sporting arse injury”. Behold!

Only the timely intervention of a kindly neighbour saved the aforementioned Mjohnson (cheers, blood!) and I from attempting to shift a 65kg digital piano on an office chair I’m currently selling on eBay. I forgot my neighbour’s name (which is fortunately on the door to his flat) almost as quickly as it took me to write the thank you note (and explanation for why he won’t be seeing his barrow for another 24 hours) I put through his letter box, but I’ll know what a sack barrow is for the rest of my life.

I have now moved all the cumbersome stuff to my new crib and am up early waiting for the new bed to be delivered. I kissed the Fat Fucks goodbye (not literally, as being prostitutes they’d probably bill me for that) last night, and at 11pm yesterday the only sounds heard in my flat were the echoes of me dropping heavy objects on the wooden floor.

I have a glorious vista of Finsbury Park from my new window, if I don’t spoil the view and look down to the petrol station forecourt beneath me. It means on a glorious summer’s day I’ll be able to see flowers, smell cut grass and children skipping together in the park. A cynic might say that I’ll also be able to inhale petrol fumes, watch dogs crapping and drunks fighting during daylight hours, but that would still be preferable to having the Fat Fucks as my neighbours.

Comments

He’s leaving home

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:36:43 +0100

Moving, unless you’re a snail, can be something of an inconvenience.

I’ve moved twice in the last eleven years (and one of those moves was to another flat in the same building), and as much as I lurrve north London, other factors have been behind my ongoing residency in London postcodes beginning with the letter n.

Now, it’s not as if those ten years have been marked with harmonious relationships with my fellow man.

The French, the Spanish, the Italians, the Boers, the Congolese: I’ve fought ‘em all.

Yet I thought I’d managed to build up a certain degree of tolerance / apathy to the activities of my various neighbours, or simply that my hearing had degraded over the years, until a pair of residents I christened the “Fat Fucks” moved in.

Worst neighbours ever.

The first weekend they moved in they were up until 2-3am playing what sounded like Zanu PF propaganda tapes at full blast.

Then the parties started (as did my calls to the Hackney noise pollution team).

Then I noticed cigarettes being extinguished.

On the banisters.

I left an ashtray out over one of the patches of ash, hoping this would alleviate the situation, but the next morning I found the ashtray gone.

And another cigarette butt in its place.

Through the looking glass we were, people.

It was impossible to get a break as the Fat Fucks rarely ventured out, and why should they considering that half the world kept trooping in to see them (generally at the more antisocial hours of the day).

The guy in the flat beneath me (and adjacent to them) was having the same problems I was with them, and we bonded over this.

He was convinced they were prostitutes, but I had to disagree with him on this point.

I was of the opinion they were crackhead prostitutes.

The letting agency proved to be of no use, constantly telling me how hard it was to evict tenants (which goes some way to making the case for screening the buggers effectively before you move them in).

About three weeks ago I had to call the police again, but this time it was for another resident.

And on Valentine’s Day, of all days.

And this incident led to me reconsidering my reluctance to find new digs.

When you've got the numbers of the local police station and the noise pollution team on your speed dial, it really is time to move on.

And although my flat may have been shit hot for throwing snowballs at unsuspecting pedestrians, seeing as the next heavy snowfall in London is probably going to be January 2018 then it was time to move on.

There is the small matter of having to move a piano to my new flat, but that may be part of the reason I’m only moving two minutes up the road (and to a building with a lift in it).

Comments

The snowball sniper

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:34:26 +0100

I've had the damndest manflu for the past 48 hours, which no amount of pharmaceutical remedies has provided some relief from. Yet, the sight of snow today, and a morning spent throwing snowballs from my third floor window at unsuspecting passers-by has cleared my head like nothing else.

Take that, bitch!

Comments

Rapist curry (and other recipes)

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:54:47 +0100

Last March I trooped down to Ealing in the hope of landing a job in a psychiatric crisis outreach team. Desperate to get away from my desk job (and Doofus), I was ready to face an hour plus commute to work before I snapped and threw a coffee jar at my colleague’s big-nosed head.

During the interview, I was asked the obligatory question of why I wanted the job. Tempted as I was, I didn’t give the answer floating through my mind at the time that I was hoping for enough jarring clinical encounters to write my own noughties version of The House of God.

Maybe the interview panel read my mind (or had read my blog), as I didn’t get the job. However, I did land a job in a psychiatric rehabilitation project a few months later, and thought that the material gathering for my forthcoming book would begin in earnest.

Since then I’ve uploaded one post based on my new employment, and that was about my boss’ secret Santa present from me, when I got him Nothing.

The material I have to some extent, but the time to write it up is something else.

Blogging is nigh on impossible to do in work, simply because it’s nearly impossible to get on a computer at work. We have three office PCs at work, and the chances of getting to use them without someone else being in the same room is up there with Safriz having a threesome with Kate Winslet and Kelly Brook. And blogging at home is like making tea in the microwave or eating a Quorn pork pie. It just doesn’t feel right somehow.

But if I do ever write that book, the focus would probably be more on the madness of the company I work for than its client group.

After studying the Soviet Union extensively during my first degree, I have some insight into an ossified bureaucratic centre that attempts to rule by decree with little insight into conditions on the ground. And our chief executive is a dead ringer for Bubbles Devere.

I’m not saying we’re a cowboy outfit, but ‘management’ has an over-optimistic sense of our ability to rehabilitate some of the referrals we’ve accepted. The primary care trust in the London borough we’re based in would quite happily see us closed down (and had a good crack at it a couple of years ago) due to our practice of importing in clients from other London boroughs with severe and complex needs, and having them use local psychiatric services. But when a category 3 resident can command a fee rate of over £1000 a week and the project’s finances are in the red, how can that not sway a manager’s thinking?

The residents are generally settled at present, although we do have one resident who would fit a Cuckoo’s Nest archetype of an institutionalized mental illness patient. At around 6 foot three and thirty stone HM is difficult to miss, particularly when he’s responding vocally to his auditory hallucinations and breaking things (on a good day a mug, on a bad day a larder door). I remember in my first couple of weeks there his responding to his auditory hallucinations at the dinner table (staff and residents eat communally) by aggressively shouting “You want some! You want some!” before storming out. I attempted to lighten things with a deadpan “So how’s the Bolognese?” once he was out of earshot.

Then there’s the resident with the conviction for rape and a somewhat unhealthy obsession with the Royal Family, but who makes a seriously mean curry.

OD I will probably post about again in future if I ever get the time. He is a book in himself, as his daily notes would demonstrate. He’s like a form of manipulative virus that is constantly trying to infiltrate its way through the team's firewall.

Then there is the resident (OC) who was once a doctor in Nigeria but now suffers with HIV-associated early onset dementia (quite how we’re supposed to rehabilitate him is another story).

Thankfully, working with OC has not provided to be the challenge it might have been.

After all, it’s not the first time that I’ve spent my working day with someone who stares blankly at a screen for much of the daytime, mindlessly repeating the same actions day after day with little reflection, and appears to have little sense of what is going on in the real world.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, eh?

Comments

I (who have nothing)

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:39:10 +0100

Being (or pretending to be) a team player can have its downside, and no more when it comes to Christmas, that season of goodwill to all men (and work colleagues).

Testing that sense of goodwill is the Yuletide Secret Santa exchange, where we have to buy a special gift for someone we may well know bugger all about.

We had our work Secret Santa draw in November, and despite having first choice of our entire team I managed to pick out my manager’s name.

Now despite a tendency to try to railroad through psychiatric referrals somewhat outside our team’s ability to manage (I’ve already made jokes to certain discrete members of our team that at our next business meeting he’s going to be introducing a new referral for a Mr Charles Manson with the introduction: “Now, how can we best manage Charles’ risk factors?”) he’s not a bad bloke.

But besides being my manager, he’s also gay, American and into kung fu.

And that's pretty much all the personal information I have on him.

I've spent many sleepless nights trying to work out a present to get him that wasn’t clumsily associated with stereotypical notions of homosexuality, America or marshal arts.

So in the end I decided to get him...

Nothing.

That’s right.

Nothing.

But before I get accused of being all Ebenezer, there’s nothing and there’s Nothing.

Behold!

Here is my special Secret Santa gift.

The instant I saw it I knew I’d found my big gay Yankee manager’s present. It’s a splendid piece of postmodern kitsch: knowing, irreverent, waggish.

And costing less than a fiver.

Deep down, I think I bought it just so that when people ask what I got my manager for Christmas I can answer with my most winning smirk, “Nothing!”

And if anyone thinks I’ve just blown my chance of a rapid promotion, I almost got him this.

Comments

Bragging rights

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:52:00 +0100

In a rare moment of insight for her, an ex- lover aptly described me as a bad loser, but an even worse winner.

Many of my friends / rivals / competitors would recognise me in that description. For me it’s not the winning that’s important, but the gloating afterwards that counts.

Currently, I’m revelling in my status as undisputed champion at pool in the residential rehabilitation project for people with chronic mental illnesses where I work.

They may all be on drugs, but it’s certainly doing nothing to enhance their performance.

One resident was the house champ at Connect Four. His great booming laugh could be heard from all corners of the project as he put another staff member to the sword.

Until I threw down the gauntlet and we went head-to-head.

The first time we played I suffered a heavy defeat, although in my defence I hadn’t played the game for over 20 years. However, a few days later we had a re-match, and I stuffed him 8-2. He demanded I play him again, which I was happy to do, and then thrashed him 10-2.

He seems to have been avoiding me of late, and the last time I saw him he was sitting in a corner by himself in the lounge, playing Sudoku and responding to his auditory hallucinations.

I don’t know if any research has been done on the contribution of losing at games to relapse rates of chronic mental illness, but if half the residents are back on inpatient wards within the next few months, I’ll be applying for a research grant.

Football, of course, is a sport where bragging rights blend with it like parks and alcoholics. Blind partisanship and decades old rivalries can set off a serotonin inferno when a victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat.

The drama at the last Champions League final was doubtless mirrored in countless pubs and front rooms across the country. A friend of mine was jumping around the room and going crazy when Ronaldo missed his spotkick in the penalty shoot out.

Of course, we all know how that ended.

Needless to say I was gracious in defeat. I offered a handshake to my friend at the end of the match (shortly after wiping my hand on my crotch).

Anyone looking for realtime evidence of gloating in grown men would be advised to check out the Sky Sports Fanzone clips. I, of course, must start with a video of the glorious U-N-I-T-E-D trashing Liverpool last season.

Of course, when there's a winner there has to be a loser, and can anyone have lost as badly as Arsenal last season? Anyone with an aversion to beer bellies and man boobs would be advised to look away now...

Of course, even the greatest lose from time-to-time...

He's so not happy...

And as a Highbury resident for the past eight years, all I can say is: who'd be a Gooner?

Thompson, I'll be seeing you in the Fanzone box at 12.45pm today. " class="middle" border="0">

Comments

I was looking for a job and I found two jobs...

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:56:04 +0200

And heaven knows I’m not quite so miserable now.

How things can change.

Has it already been almost three months since I was last sat next to this goofball:

Look at her. How vacantly unaware she looks that a coffee jar was so close to being hurled in her direction one Wednesday afternoon. An ironic way for ol’ Doofus to go, as she always used to say how she couldn’t live without coffee.

So in late July I was transferred from one NHS psychiatric administrative outpost hell to... another psychiatric administrative outpost hell. However, in the interview for the post I was forced to accept, I kept to myself a little secret.

I’d had an interview for another job a week before.

Unfortunately, the mental health charity I’d interviewed at decided to prick tease me for close to three weeks, so I had to start the new post not knowing if I was going to be there for a month, a year or eternity.

Thankfully, it turned out to only be for five weeks. For one thing, the new office I worked in was full of asbestos.

And that was its most winning feature.

Amazingly, there was someone in the office who was worse than Doofus. It took me two days working with her before I started dreaming of her being knocked down by a N29 bendy bus. To Doofus’s credit, it took six months before I felt homicidal urges towards her.

But one Thursday morning I got the phonecall that told me:

“TKK, you are now a mental health recovery worker. Burn your keyboard, throw your PC monitor out of the window, and kiss goodbye to your administrative career. You are a free man!”

So I am now making Christmas cards with the mentally ill in a rehabilitation project in my beloved narf Lahndan. I no longer have to endure daily email ‘funnies’ about cats and the amusing differences between men and women. This job is actually helping my career plans. Plus I get to play pool in working hours. Bliss.

But, as a parting gift to the Doofus days, here’s a video of the day she lost her Oystercard and was searching everywhere in the office for it. I would have helped her look for it, but then I wouldn’t have been able to film it for posterity. Plus I hated the old bat.

(Sorry if the quality’s more Ken Bigley than Ken Loach, but the camera’s resolution on my phone is crap)

Comments

Meet the pets

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:49:48 +0200

This weekend my relationship with Mrs TKK reaches a critical stage when we head to my home town in Wales for some housesitting and I have to introduce her to…

The dog.

The meet the parents bit I’m not too concerned about, as they have a default position of assuming anyone I go out with is too good for me (I’m tempted to bring Maxine Carr home to test this stance), so she’s assured a warm welcome. But introducing her to the dog might prove tricky, given Bess’ possessive and challenging behaviour with past girlfriends.

In general terms hugging and kissing a girlfriend in her presence is a mistake, as she will rush over, bark, and jump up at the girlfriend.

In more specific terms, the first time I brought R back to the house Bess proceeded to jump on her head and refuse to move, making it look like R was wearing a particularly avant garde style of hat.

A second girlfriend made a real effort to get on with Bess, but Ms I was placed in the ignominious position of being persistently snubbed. When an animal as sociable as a dog blanks you, what does that say? This girlfriend was Japanese, so maybe I have a racist dog…

The ultimate “fuck you!” moment came in the park when Ms I attempted to ingratiate herself by throwing a stick for Bess, which arced through the air and landed a reasonable distance away.

And remained unclaimed there.

Until I encouraged Bess to fetch it, at which point she raced after it, bringing it back.

To me.

What a complete bitch!

So I face a week of trying to avoid being in the doghouse with both parties.

Still, if things get too competitive between, I can always break out the muzzle.

Comments

But seriously...

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:14:00 +0200

I’ve now been in a relationship for three months, and a mate texted me over the weekend to ask if things were “serious” yet.

I think things are somewhere in-between “quite serious” and “serious”, but thought I’d give the matter some serious consideration.

I decided to think rationally, weigh up the pros and cons and see whether or not being in a “quite serious to serious” relationship was a good thing.

The pros

No.1
It is the ultimate trump card in any argument I have with my billy-no-shags mates. A friend of mine during the Champions League final was having a pop at me for being an "armchair MUFC glory boy", as if getting United tickets is as straightforward as going to watch Crystal Palace (on a good day, you can have an entire stand to yourself at Selhurst). After taking note of the many months that had passed since his last sexual encounter, and pointing to the porn dvd left on top of his player, I couldn’t resist twisting the blade and, borrowing his description, observing that these days he seemed to be having something of an armchair sex life.

No.2
If I bump into someone I mildly used to fancy, I can now act as if they meant nothing at all by using the phrase “my girlfriend” as often as possible in conversation. It also means I don’t have to feign attentiveness when in the company of attractive but boring women. Someone I met recently told me I was “rather quiet today”, when in fact I just couldn’t be bothered to listen to her continuing series of mini-lectures on herself.

No.3
If I go shopping, and forget something on the list, and my darling is due round that day, I can always ask my love to pick up the missing item on the way round. Especially good if it’s something embarrassing (e.g. condoms).

No.4
Perfect excuse for getting out of unwanted social invitations. The “my girlfriend has plans” line may well be bullshit, and make me look henpecked, but it’s already got me out of one work do! Hooray for appearing henpecked!

Cons
No.1
Having to tidy my flat on a regular basis. I feel like I could overdose anytime on the combination of bleach fumes and misdirected Mr Muscle spray. The drudge of hoovering and washing up is totally cutting into my leisure time. I am giving serious consideration to employing MJohnson’s cleaner. He only pays her 50p a week, so I might well offer to triple her wages and promise not to laze around naked while she cleans (which I have it on good authority he does on a regular basis).

No.2
The cost of (decent) contraception. It’s not just food and petrol that seems to be increasing the cost of living these days. It’s like a bleedin’ tax on virility! I'm generally for recycling, but not in this case.

No.3
Wearing (decent) contraception. Whatever happened to femidoms? The pill? Coitus interruptus?

No.4
My spine seems to be contracting from sharing the bed with my girlfriend on a regular overnight basis. I asked a married friend if this gets better. He said it does, although I'll swear he's lost a couple of inches in height since his marriage.

Having weighed up the pros and cons in an entirely rational manner, I’m thinking that despite all the cleaning, expense and hunchedbackness that comes with being in a relationship, it’s worth it if it means I can carry on taking the piss out of anyone I know in the middle of a sexual drought. Which reminds me that I forgot to buy condoms again!

Comments

The Doofus summer collection

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:35:26 +0200

Now that all British players are out of the Wimbledon singles draw, we know that summer is finally here.

Some of you ladies, no doubt, are probably fretting over how to best expose your flesh to us men this summer.

Some of you probably need help in this area to avoid fashion disasters (whereas some of you just require help).

Luckily, I have access to our resident workplace fashion guru, Doofus.

Ladies: I guarantee that the following outfits will be all a-go this summer. You will be the talk of the town if you manage to bag one of these lucky combinations!

Outfit no 1

It takes a special someone to get away with a dog vomit and blancmange combination, but I reckon our Doofy carries it off with aplomb!

Outfit no 2

Blouse, tastefully inspired by Jackson Pollock, with skirt in tasteful dog shit colour. Brown is a very underrated colour...

Outfit 3

Girls: scarves worn indoors are so the way to go this summer! It’s preppy, it’s peppy, it’s you!

Outfit 4

Forget anything you were taught about colour wheels and combinations! Just rip it up and start again! Totally postmodern and avant garde, it’s what all the arty folks are wearing this summer!

Outfit 5

A cunning reverse of outfit 2! Proof that dogshit brown works as both a blouse and skirt colour!

And thanks again to our lovely model. She sure knows how to pose for the camera!

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Turning a deaf ear

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:04:45 +0200

The weekend before last, I ventured back to the musical youth I would have had if I’d been slightly older and cooler, and took in a My Bloody Valentine concert.

MBV concerts are notorious for their volume, and in fifteen years of gig going it was the first time I’d seen posters recommending, nay pleading, that punters take up the offer of free ear plugs on offer.

And if you think I’m being something of a pussy boy, check out the following extracts from some of the reviews in the mainstream press a couple of days later.

“They even reprised their old finale, which they used to call their "holocaust": an explosion of tinnitus-inducing white noise that erupted in "You Made Me Realise" and was sustained for at least 15 unforgiving minutes. A demented light show added to the sensory assault” (Financial Times).

“Anyone for tinnitus? My Bloody Valentine made their live return after 16 years of slow-motion procrastination this weekend, handing out free earplugs to anyone who had forgotten what ruthless sonic assaults their gigs used to be... Finally they reached the most famous part of their set — You Made Me Realise, more than 15 minutes of cacophonous, single-chord madness and the most intense live experience I think I’ve ever had. Some audience members looked genuinely in pain, many kept their hands in the air like the brave ones on a rollercoaster. It was far from enjoyable but it made clear why, so long after their creative peak, people still speak with awe about this remarkable, deafening band” (thisislondon.co.uk).

“The night ends with You Made Me Realise, the 1988 single that famously contains 40 seconds of screaming noise instead of a middle-eight. Tonight, it lasts 20 minutes: if you tentatively remove an earplug, it is like being punched in the side of the head” (Guardian).

I guess, judging by the varying length of You Made Me Realise, that the Guardian reviewer was made of hardier stock than the other critics (although I have it on good authority it was actually 24 minutes long).

In all honesty, I can’t say the free ear plugs made that much difference to the volume of the band (at least not without the added aid of my hands pressed to my ears). My tinnitus was so bad the day after the gig that I simply had to email my boss and say I wouldn’t be in work that day.

But what the ear plugs did filter out was the sound of irritating chatter from nearby punters during the evening. There’s nothing worse than having a group of people next to you who have to talk all the way through the gig, especially when it’s about things that have nothing at all to do with what’s going on on-stage.

It’s bad enough having some cunt chanting the name of the song it’s completely obvious the band will do (Verve gigs are ruined these days by blokes chanting: “Go on! Do ‘istory! ‘istory!”), without listening to someone recount the weekend’s activities and what they’re having to eat when they get home after the gig, during the song you’ve been waiting over a decade to hear played live.

The only drawback to having earplugs in is that when you try and hold a conversation with someone it does sound akin to someone masturbating and talking at the same time. I’d recommended everyone try this at least once (the talking with ear plugs in bit, natch).

Now all I need are a set of nose plugs, and post smoking ban gigs might start to become vaguely pleasurable activities once again.

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I’ll do anything for love (so I won’t eat that)

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:21:10 +0200

Although I have the culinary know how of a service station cook, it’s surprising the amount of times food has been a divisive issue in some of my past relationships.

An example of this would be the incident that determined the eventual break-up with my first lover.

I have never, ever, stood anyone up. I may be the Yves Saint Laurent of time when it comes to being fashionably late, but it’s a dead cert that I’ll be around at some point on the day I arrange to meet someone.

So getting stood up by my then lover was the penultimate straw.

But not the final one.

It wasn’t the fact that she’d stood me up that really got my goat.

Oh no.

It was when I called her to find out where the fuck she was and found out that she was at her flat.

Eating crisps.

The fact that she was shovelling crisps down her neck when she should have been meeting me outside a freezing cold Holborn tube station really stuck in my throat (pun intended).

And we never saw each other again.

But faced with a choice between indulging in comfort food or providing immediate sustenance, I hoped that I’d never make the same mistake.

But a couple of nights ago I almost did.

For reasons I’m not going to go into (until we break up), tuna is very much a four-letter word in our relationship. All I’ll say is that, having dated vegetarians before, some really are more obsessive than others.

And t’other night, in the midst of an emotional confrontation, I had to choose between letting things cool down for a few minutes ~~and having a tuna roll to pass the time~~ before having a go at digging myself out of the hole I’d dived into, or sorting things out immediately before I ended up having to put my (unused) Durex stash onto eBay (the used ones are currently up for auction...).

Trust me: never has a tuna roll looked as delectable as it did then, encased in a M&S baguette like an oyster in a clam.

But, wiping a tear from my eye, I walked over to the open window and ~~dived out of it~~ threw the roll in the direction of the bins (I live on the third floor, so its downward trajectory was all the more dramatic).

And did my great sacrifice have the desired effect?

Er, eventually.

And to immortalize the moment of great sacrifice, my lover took a photo of the decomposing roll the next day (minus the tuna, so MJohnson’s rabid cat, Tubs, has evidently followed his master to Finsbury Park and is continuing to stalk me).

And whoever thinks that poignant moments can’t be found standing next to the bins by a stale roll with ants crawling over it, they have no imagination whatsoever.

TKK: ever willing to compromise in the name of continued ~~regular sex~~ relationship harmony.

Although you can fuck right off if you think I’m going to stop smoking.

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Will psychologically assess for food

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:06:21 +0200

Productiveness can be a very subjective state.

These days, in my super ultra mega unmotivated work situation, I now assess my productivity on how many job applications I’ve sent off.

This week I’ve sent off two, which is an almost Stakhanovite display of productiveness compared to my normal output.

Thing is, I’m getting desperate.

So desperate, that I’m prepared to work for nothing.

The market for assistant psychologists is intensely competitive, not helped by the bottleneck in the system for clinical psychology training. As a consequence, many fledgling clinical psychs fail to fly the nest, meaning there’s less worms on offer for the baby birds.

Add to this the apparent general lack of NHS funding (although psychological methods of treatment are increasingly the indicated treatment for many mental health conditions) and you have conditions ripe for exploitation.

Hence I’m applying for an unpaid job for a minimum of one day a week. Maybe if I’m prepared to work five days a week unpaid then it’ll enhance my prospects...

So seeing as this all being done for the goodness of psychology, you’d think they might enhance the job to make it worthwhile.

Wrong.

Check out this little doozy in the job description:

To assist the Administrator in administrative tasks including filing, photocopying, sorting questionnaires, moving files to storage, purchasing items, information gathering and data entry.

So leaving admin land for the sunny shores of psychology still means no escape from the three Fs (filing, faxing, photocopying).

But then I am sitting next to someone who wore a dog vomit and blancmange combination outfit (picture to follow) to work yesterday. Someone who has spent the morning whining that she can’t wear flowery wellies because they draw attention to her big feet.

Maybe being broke and destitute, but being occupationally fulfilled at the same time, isn’t such a bad alternative.

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Maybe even Calvinists have days like this

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:39:52 +0200

Back in the day when I started this blog, stuck for subjects to write about, I started compiling a top ten of my worst jobs.

Like many a project I’ve started in life, it remained unfinished, stalling at No.5 with a post titled ‘Just about any NHS department I’ve worked in’.

I’m starting to think that title may well be my epitaph.

Rather optimistically at the time of compiling the top ten (or no.10 through to no.5), with my psych graduation in sight, I felt the future was so bright I was gonna need shades.

Fat chance.

It wasn’t just the job top ten that stalled.

My ‘career plan’ has, er, careered since those halcyon days.

Today I was supposed to be in a job interview. I had my resignation letter ready, so convinced was I that this interview was going to be the one.

Fat chance.

I received a phonecall last Thursday to inform me the interview was cancelled due to withdrawal of funding for the post.

When I informed the bearer of bad news that it was ‘just one of those things’, I was at that moment the master of understatement.

Because, and let there be no mistake, I absolutely hate my job.

It seems that in life you have some measure of control over your friends, partners and pets, but when it comes to work colleagues and family, you’re fucked.

The enmity towards the pigeon-faced geriatric I sit next to is well detailed in past blogs (and now my blog media space has increased x30 I’ll have to upload the video of her losing her Oystercard). But do imagine sitting next to someone you never ever speak to (unless you count the swearing under my breath) in work, unless it’s unavoidable.

It’s depressing having to spend so much time in the company of someone I despise so much, and explains why I see my new girlfriend so often.

Me Julie thinks I’m crazy about her and that she’s both treasured and cherished. Instead, the real reason she’s so often in my company is because I don’t want Doofus to be the person I spend the most amount of time next to in my life.

But not speaking to Doofus doesn’t save me, as it still means I have to endure her banal conversation during the day. Here is an example of why I’m considering enlisting in the Foreign Legion at the end of the week.

Doofus: *has ecstatic look on her face as she walks over to a colleague* I had a crab paste sandwich last night!

Colleague: *bemused look and unsure how to respond*

D: Yeah, a crab paste sandwich. That’s crab paste and bread together.

C: ...

D: *walks back to own desk*

TKK: *puts shotgun into mouth*

Youth may well be wasted on the young, but retirement is completely wasted on the old.

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Rear window

Fri, 16 May 2008 14:13:36 +0200

On Monday I made a rare excursion from my beloved north London to chez Mrs TKK’s in the west of the capital. It took barely seconds after had we got in through the door and into her room before she was introducing me to a fun and prurient new activity.

Tenant watch.

Mrs TKK’s bedroom window faces out onto to the tenement in the street opposite, and is ideally located for tenant watch in being centrally positioned in the block.

After initially shrugging off her invitation to join in by considering it a tad on the intrusive side, I gave in to temptation and was instantly hooked.

I can’t explain why, but there is something mesmerising at seeing someone walk into a room, take a plate from the cupboard, lay it on the table and then get out the knives and forks. Even a bloke pausing to scratch his arse takes on a profundity I would never have previously considered. Seeing someone either arrive or leave is the Holy Grail. Seeing someone leave alone and arrive with another is the holiest of the Holy Grails.

Then there’s the “surely it’s not happening!” moments. I did wonder at one point whether a couple in the flat to the top left were about to participate in some kind of kinky activity, but it turned out they were merely trying to shove a wardrobe closer to the wall. Rats! And I’d got the camera ready n’ all.

And if you want to get meta, you can, as we weren’t the only ones reaching for the binoculars. So you can have the scenario where you’re watching people who are watching you watching them. Fantastic stuff.

And when the darkness starts to creep in, it’s like watching a 70ft screen of monitors. All it needs is some form of remote control and it’ll be perfect.

All this begged the question in my brain as the tube sped back oop to narf Lahndan:

West London: where art thou net curtains?

TKK and Mrs TKK consider whether the guy in flat opposite is a potential murderer or just an arse scratcher.

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