Things I couldn't edit down into 140 characters

One day I'll see a couple on the train home from work where she could clearly do far better for herself and yet she's looking at him attentively and adoringly and he doesn't notice, either because he's trying to tell her something or because he's used to it and has stopped noticing or because he never noticed it in the first place and is thinking that he has to say something amusing otherwise she's going to lose interest because she's far too good for him and not think to myself "how does that happen, and how can I get that to happen to me?". However, today was not that day.

A bit like her off the Telecom adverts

I was in the lift on my way down to the ground and out of the building for the weekend. I was late, about half an hour or so, but not too bothered; I usually clear my Inbox out last thing on a Friday, and I'd rather be a little late if it means not having to pore through hundreds of emails to find anything on Monday, and I'd had a large lunch and so wouldn't be feeling hungry any time soon. I was probably thinking about what to listen to on the way home: I'd listened to Bernard Cribbins on the way in and was trying to find something suitably contrasting, but my head was nagging me about photos from festivals getting lost in camera insurance scams.

About halfway to the ground, the lift stopped and a jolly woman in a suit entered. She seemed not to notice me at first - not just not acknowledging my presence but not even spotting that I was there, then giving me a bit of a surprised look. However, she was clearly the redoubtable type as she quickly recovered from this and decided to engage me in the sort of lift chit-chat that I hadn't been enjoying the other day.

"Glad it's Friday?"

I said something along the lines it being quite a relief.

"End of another shitty week, eh?" I paused to think about this. Was this another discussion about the weather? "Well, they're all shitty weeks, I suppose."

This bemused me. I wanted to suggest that if every week was a shitty week then it might be a good idea to spend the weekend considering where your career might be going (I'd assumed, given that she was smartly attired and not wearing, for example, jeans that were slightly too long but having to wear trainers because he'd broken the laces on his boots the day before, and as such could be said to have a career rather than whatever it is that I have). But I decided against it. That Effective Communication course I took the other day really isn't working, or maybe it's working too well, I'm not sure.

Anyway, it's not been a shitty week. It's been a bit odd, maybe - any time I do a course it throws me out and I spend half the week wondering what day it is - and there's much to think about this weekend, and I could do without this cough, but it's not been a shitty week really. As I followed her out of the building the woman paused as if to get something, probably an umbrella given the weather, from her bag and I decided to scamper towards the station as quickly as possible in case she decided to continue the conversation.

In the end I decided to plump for a playlist called Your 100 Best Tunes, which I keep for such occasions and which doesn't actually feature my 100 best tunes at all, but which does at least have a name based on a programme whose title always intrigued me, even if I was never inclined to listen to it.

Like that time Peelie sat in for Jakki Brambles

In the lift this morning I found myself subjected to two middle-aged women complaining about the weather. "You'd never think it was July" said one, "it never used to be like this in July, the weather's definitely changed". "It was my son's birthday in June and it always used to be sunny on his birthday, now look at it" said the other. Hang on, it was my birthday in June and it was a delightful day. And wasn't it mostly sunny last week? I suppose conversations in lifts between acquaintances tend to go this way, and it's not as if I'd deny the existence of climate change, but we always used to go on holiday at around this time of year and for every holiday where the sun beat down for a fortnight, there'd be one where we'd spend endless days staring out of the chalet window wondering if we'd ever get out.

(We always used to go on holiday during school term time. Near the end of term, admittedly, but I can't help but wonder if those vital weeks of schooling were the vital missing element from my life that would have ultimately led to me being regarded as one of the finest minds of a generation, rather than whatever it is that I'm regarded as now.)

I can't get upset or offended by a rainy Wednesday in July. The weather upsets me if it's forecast to snow then doesn't, or if it's a hot spell and it's forecast to rain then it doesn't, but I don't quite understand why it should be a problem otherwise. So if it wasn't raining you would have skipped work for the day and sat in the garden drinking cold drinks? No? Well, it doesn't really make an awful lot of difference, then, does it? Tcha.

Did they ever explain the overbite?

On Saturday I engaged in spontaneous gig-going for the first time in ages. Well, not exactly spontaneous I suppose - I read about the gig in the listings in the morning and, having mulled it over during the day, decided it might be more fun than an evening in watching Dr Who - but it does seem that any gig I attend of late has been more akin to a military action, carefully planned in adva... all right, not that much like a military action then.

The evening was slightly spoiled by most of the banes of the gig-going experience - the modern one of someone raising some picture-taking device above their head and in your way to take either some fuzzy pictures of precious little use to anyone or a few seconds of crappy footage to post on Youtube; the traditional one of people who pay money to go to a gig and then talk loudly at all times; the occasional but irksome one of there being an attendant in the toilet (possibly the same one I encountered many moons ago). But fortunately Slow Club were splendid, so much so that you could forgive everything falling apart at the end because the girl one's arms were tired, apparently on account of her not having attended the stretch and tone class recently.

The morning after I was idly looking out of a train window when I caught sight of another musical event that I could have attended. Not just any old event though, oh no, but Essex's largest free music and entertainment festival [citation required].

I had to wait for a really cute girl to walk past before I could take this photo. I felt far too embarrassed to take one with her in it. It probably wasn't worth it.

Now, it would be easy to knock this sort of thing, but to be honest I feel happier about councils bunging cash at things like this than some of the things they might choose to, particularly when it's not my council that's doing it. The main attractions, for example were The Bootleg Beatles. Now, I wouldn't particularly want to see The Bootleg Beatles, and I've been amused by Lee & Herring's bit about The Bootleg Bootleg Beatles and the HMHB bit about the Booleg Mark Chapman as much as anyone, but essentially, if you want to see people performing the music of the Beatles, of the many options available The Bootleg Beatles seem like a pretty good one. All right, so you could go and see an actual Beatle, but it would be expensive and they might play you some of their new material first, which would take the edge off it a bit. Also, I'm fairly sure that one of Wreckless Eric's old backing band was in The Bootleg Beatles, and that sort of thing counts for something round here.


Now, I'll be honest, I wouldn't want to see apparently-second on the bill Journey South either, but then I've only just found out who they are. I'd guessed at them being a forgotten boyband, but it turned out that they were X-Factor rejects; either way it's probably for the best that the good burghers of Basildon are helping to keep them off the streets.

No, the real intrigue here lies with the last listed attraction, in which people perform the music of Amy Winehouse. Now, I find the idea of tribute acts to people who are both (at time of writing) alive and performing regularly slightly creepy, and I've never liked the music of Winehouse - never got on with the voice - so I wouldn't be interested in this entertainment at all, but I can see the appeal if you did. After all, you get all of the tunes and none of the worries as to whether the performer is going to show up or ask you to join in with a heartfelt plea to the authorities to release her unpleasant, behatted, unpleasantly-behatted husband; as long as the band are half-decent you're probably on a winner. However, this particular act is hugely redeemed in my eyes by being called The Amy Winehouse Experience. Because it does imply that there's a chance - a very faint chance, but still a chance - that between songs The Amy Winehouse Experience might do an amusing Baddielian monologue, or possibly a sketch in which the backing band insult each other by using the phrase 'that's you, that is" before triumphantly brandishing milk cartons and going on to be in a terrible topical comedy series on Radio 4.

In the end even this dim prospect wasn't enough to tempt me and I decided to stay on the train and visit my parents. Which was good, as there was rhubarb crumble for afters and everything.

There isn't anything else

This week, aside from the summer party and other miscellaneous stuff we shan't discuss here, was going to be the week when I wasn't going to write anything about football (apart from an end-of-tournament round-up picking out errors in the team of the tournament (Bosingwa? The new Phillip Lahm, more like) and a bit I forgot on Sunday about teams allegedly always having a chance in the last few minutes) and catching up with a lot of entries I haven't quite got round to for which details have been scrawled on notepads in the style of an essay plan at the top of an exam answer sheet, only without a cobweb drawn in the opposite corner in an attempt to focus.

Unfortunately my computer, being somewhat less reliable than Jem Finer's, isn't playing ball at the moment, and so I've been busy trying to get it to work properly and avoid the spinny beach ball o'doom, with little success. Which means that I haven't had time for any entries based around amusing pictures (well, pictures of things that amused me anyway):



or inexplicable pictures taken at Underground stations:


that I can't even crop without causing my computer to lurch unpleasantly, or indeed anything much at all. Which is a bit of a shame, as I was rather looking forward to writing them up. Maybe at the weekend, then, if my computer hasn't completely given up the ghost by then.

It doesn't matter anyway

Now, possibly I'm missing something here but I'm fairly sure that double-decker buses aren't made out of cardboard as a rule. Admittedly, living in this out of the way backwater I usually only get single deck buses these days, but when I used to get double-deckers I'm sure they were always made of something more substantial than cardboard. And I'm not sure if the cardboard bus is necessarily the way forward, either; possibly they'd be more environmentally friendly than the metal versions, but on a wet day everyone would cower downstairs, and what use is that?

Still, while I recognise this as a rather hare-brained project, I will recycle my cereal box to help them bring the plan to fruition.


Oh noes! Not only are Redbridge Council destroying the cardboard double-decker bus dreams of a nation, but they don't appear to know that "thank you" consists of two separate words! The horror just keeps on coming.

Gas Factory Junction

While I've maintained my usual standards of personal hygiene during my week off - well, I skipped the odd shower here and there, but only on days when I knew that I probably wouldn't be mixing with polite society - I haven't been shaving much. This partly due to laziness, and partly because my left cheek has been looking rather sore of late and I've been trying to avoid dragging a blade across it as much as possible. As such, I now have a rather slovenly layer of fuzz across my neck and cheeks. (I'll spare you the picture I just took of my hairy chin.)

And this has got me thinking about beards. I've always been against beards, which I suspect dates from early childhood and being made to kiss a bearded uncle (which I'm sure must be a euphemism for something, but I'm not going to speculate what). However, I am wondering if this is the right time to have a go at growing one myself - I no longer have a bearded workmate (again, really sounds like it should mean something else) so I couldn't be accused of copying someone else, and bearded former workmate was definitely a hit with the company's female workforce, although that may have been because he was witty and sociable and other things I tend to struggle with. Plus there was that girl on the internet dating site who I sent a really good message in which I pointed out the many ways in which we might enjoy each others' company and that the only one of her criteria I didn't meet was my beardlessness (*) and who never wrote back.

On the other hand, I suspect beard maintenance is probably far more time-consuming than shaving, and there's always the danger of getting crumbs in it. And it's not as if my chin is my worst feature. Plus I'm sure beards on slightly tubby men tend not to be flattering. No. I was right all along. Beards are dangerous and wrong. I shall reach for my razor at the first possible opportunity.

(*) Which is a word, according to my spellchecker. Blimey (**).
(**) Blimey isn't, though, so I wouldn't believe a word it says.