Can't Shape Up

Last week, I was delighted that the supermarket that I usually do my shopping in (yes, yes, I know, two supermarket-related entries in a row; let's never say that I'm predictable or anything) was giving out free bags for life. Well, all right, delighted may be overstating it a little, although I was slightly hung-over, and so anything even slightly positive was cheering me, but I was pleased; I've always meant to get some of them to save on plastic bags, but I never tend to think of it until such point as my purchases are hurtling down the checkout waiting for me to pack them. "Make sure you bring them back next time" said the woman who served me.

Fast forward to this week, and I'm approaching the checkout with the bags from last week neatly folded in the satchel I habitually carry over my shoulder. The person being served was already handing over their card, and so by the time I'd begun to put my shopping on the conveyer belt, the woman at the checkout was ready to start passing my shopping through. "Would you like me to start packing?" she asked. Once upon a time I would have taken offence at this, but I've come to accept that it's standard procedure. However, I always decline, as I like to have things just so, and besides they always use too many bags and so I end up having to re-pack everything before I return my trolley.

So she waits patiently while I lay everything out on the conveyer belt, and while she waits she pulls some plastic bags off the roll and opens them so that I won't have to fiddle with them while packing my shopping. And this puts me in an awkward position; I've snubbed her assistance once, and to pull out the sturdier bags for life at this stage... well, it'd be edging towards the downright rude.

So I used the plastic bags. I know, I know, I'm killing the planet and the baby Jesus and Al Gore would have a few things to say about the likes of me but, honestly, I'd have felt terrible. And I promise to start using the other bags next week. Yes.

The Unified Theory of Everything

As the Central Line seemed to have ground to a halt again, I took my backup route home. This takes me near the branch of Tesco that about featured in about three-quarters of TAoF, and as I was already slightly wary about how much shopping I have to get this week I decided to take the opportunity to pick up a couple of the heavier items. After deciding which size box of washing powder to buy - yeah, Friday nights around mine are just the best - I turned and was slightly surprised to see someone I used to go to school with; she dashed past, picked up some fabric softener, and was gone.

A little later, I felt oddly compelled to look her up on Facebook. I was mildly disturbed by her friends list, which featured several of the little group of us that would hang around together in the summer of 1992 (judging by the photos they still see each other and have several whales of a time, which made me feel slightly left out, as if it wasn't my fault that I'm entirely hopeless at keeping in touch with people) and a few others from school who I wouldn't have thought knew her at all. A certain amount of frankly pitiful delving and head-scratching followed. I am feeble.

But this got me to thinking about something that had first occurred to me the other week, when my mum had mentioned something about something my sister had put on her Facebook page that someone else had commented on (for, if nothing else, Facebook is a splendid generator of Chinese whispers for the modern age). Which is that I've always been very good at separating out all of the various areas of my life - work, friends, family, people I exchange emails with, that sort of thing - but the idea of them meeting up anywhere appalls me. I suspect this dates back to never feeling entirely comfortable when my schoolfriends would come round and thus doing everything I could to avoid having them and my parents in the same room; I still feel that way now, only on a grander scale. Which I think is why I generally find it quite easy to resist Facebook and see Friday afternoons as an excellent chance to get my photocopying out of the way rather than sending messages to all of my chums. Except for looking someone up on it earlier this evening. And this entry that I've just written about it. Drat.

(It also occurs to me that I'd be utterly mortified if anyone I'm related to or work with found this page. Not that there's anything about any of them on the page, or anything particularly personal that they could comment on, but... well, I'd feel hugely awkward.)

Of course, there's also the problem that I find the notion of asking people to be my friend slightly pitiful, but that particular psychological flaw is best left to another day, as I'm tired.

Disrespectful to Bournemouth

If they ever get rid of Boost bars and a couple of years later someone starts an ironic internet campaign to get them brought back, you can count me out for a start. I had one today because I was in the mood for a raisin and biscuit Yorkie, only the vending machine didn't have any raisin and biscuit Yorkies and I thought that a raisin and biscuit Boost might be a pleasant alternative, but it wasn't.

Moreover, while I was chewing on this not-particularly-tasty non-treat, a particularly attractive young woman who I haven't previously encountered asked for directions to someone's desk, and so while I sent her off in the right direction she will have been left with the impression that I am an utter slob who is always scoffing away, albeit a helpful one. This is entirely the Boost's fault; if I'd been eating something tasty but less chewy, say a Peanut Butter KitKat Chunky, I would have made the bar last longer rather than shove it all in my mouth to get it out of the way as quickly as possible, thus avoiding the problem.

(You could make a case for retaining the Boost if you were working up a skit about introducing disapointing things to other disappointing things - "Cadbury's Boost, meet the Mighty Boosh; Mighty Boosh, meet the Cadbury's Boost". But not a very strong case.)

I hope they still boo the ("showjumping commentator Michael Tucker" - Ed)

I already had a dilemma regarding Wednesday. On the one hand, Bearsuit; on the other, the twin charms of Sons and Daughters and The Victorian English Gentlemens Club. And then, earlier this evening, suddenly a third option opened up, one that I hated myself for being interested in but was worried that I may not be able to resist.

Fortunately, the picture on this page has completely put me off. Which is quite good, in a way, and really bad, in lots of others.

Where is mankind?

If something depressing is going to occur, it may as well occur at the start of the day.

I was already in a bit of an odd mood. I had a slight hangover (another of the dismal signs of aging; it used to be that the only hangovers that I'd get would be monstrous ones after an evening of ill-advised revelry, whereas a swift half or, er, seven wouldn't cause any problems the following day, but, these days I find than I sometimes wind up with the sort of nagging throb that I'm guessing is the sort of thing that other people complain about, and I have nothing else to put it down to) and was worried about the events of the night before, in particular what I took to be a friendly groping incident. I was, I hasten to point out, not the groper, but I didn't do anything to put the groper off, and after my initial bemusement I probably enjoyed it more than I should. It's been a long time, after all.

Anyway, with this already troubling me, along with the rain that started the moment I left the supermarket, I returned my trolley to the trolley park, and got to hear part of the conversation of the two men with the the unenviable job of rounding up and parking stray trolleys, which went along the lines of:

"...yeah, but the thing with that was that he ran away from the police and jumped over the barrier, so basically he was asking for it".

Which, if nothing else, is a lesson on the value of getting your lie in quickly, particularly if there's a chance that the people you're lying to are going to be incredibly fucking ignorant.

But after that the potentially depressing events of the rest of the day didn't seem quite as bad. The bus home smelling of last night's sick, for example - slightly unpleasant, maybe, but I was only going a few stops. Unfortunate home defeat that might appear to be a hammering but really, really wasn't - hey, I spent the journey home mentally constructing a defiant playlist to cheer myself up with. Forgetting that Bottle Rocket was on this evening - well, a shrug of the shoulders and a reminder to keep a closer eye on the schedules in future. Not that I found any of these less depressing than confirmation of people's stupidity (although I probably should have done) but maybe I was better braced for disappointment.

By this token, I suppose that I should go back to listening to early morning radio instead of devising myself interesting playlists or recording good radio programmes to listen to instead. I'm not going to, though.

The dull inevitable thud

I don't usually begin my journey to work until towards the end of the rush hour, and so while the trains are usually quite busy (particularly with the Central Line seeming somewhat fragile at the moment - I suspect that someone looking at a tube map in a funny way is enough to cause extensive cancellations), it isn't nearly as bad as the crush that occurs about half an hour earlier.

Unfortunately, due to a mix-up with a delivery company, I had to leave half an hour earlier this morning, which meant boarding trains at the height of the peak period. Moreover, because two buses had gone past in the couple of minutes between my getting sight of the main road and reaching the bus-stop, I'd decided to walk to the station at quite a brisk pace, meaning that I was quite overheated even before I'd boarded a train. When the train came it was already fairly busy, and I was unable to grab even one of those uncomfortable seat-rest things at the end of the carriage.

A few stops along the line, with the train becoming more populated, a young woman boarded and stood next to where I'd propped myself up next to the door. I noted that she'd had the sense to remove her coat, as if anticipating the unpleasant overheating caused by squeezing too many people into such a small space. I also noted that she was not only extremely attractive, but was also quite well turned out. Not a hair was out of place, her make-up was subtle (to the point that I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been standing inches away), and she was wearing a nice skirt. I was rapt.

As the train was about to pull away, she reached up to hold on to the rail, which revealed a big sweaty armpit stain.

This didn't reduce my opinion of her. If anything it enhanced it; "so, you have the same problem with unpleasant perspiring as I do". Which made it even more imperative that I avoiding staring at either her or her armpit, which was slightly difficult as she was stood right in front of me. Instead I ended up focusing on the book she was reading, which was of the unfortunate chick-lit genre, if unfortunate chick-lit could be said to be a genre. Which it probably can't.

This is the inaugural Bus Shelters of Ilford Series 3 post about women on tube trains. I fear it will not be the last.

Kilburn Lane

I have inadvertently bought some Christmas-themed kitchen roll. I only bought it because it was on special offer and about 16p cheaper than the Sainsbury's own brand roll. I didn't stop to think that it might be of a festive nature. because, well, it's kitchen roll, and whose life would be so incomplete that they'd want Christmas-themed kitchen roll?

This is all the more embarrassing as I was only yesterday railing against having Christmas foisted upon me ridiculously early, in response to discovering that a certain national newspaper (the one that employs right reactionary old scumbag John Gaunt, as I recall) had given away Santa Claus: The Movie, despite it not being the middle of November yet. "But you don't have anything to organise for Christmas, you just turn up" pointed out a responsible adult. "But that has nothing to do with Santa Claus: The Movie" I retorted. And, you know, I was right.

Mind you, I was quite tempted to listen to some Sufjan Stevens Christmas songs last night, so clearly this has all had a damaging effect on me at some sort of subconscious level.

Audacity

I found myself in Ilford with about three quarters of an hour to kill. Unfortunately I'd had to kill time in Ilford the day before (Ladies! I am both single and absurdly punctual. C'mon, you're getting excited just thinking about it, I can tell) and thus had already used up all time-killing options.

Had I thought it through properly, I would have bought a magazine, headed for the food court, bought a drink and maybe something to nibble on and whiled away the time there. (*) Unfortunately I didn't think it through properly, which is why I decided that it was time that my never-ending quest to find trousers that suit me took in T K Maxx. I have never been in T K Maxx before. My overriding impression of T K Maxx from my brief visit is this: if you imagine some sort of dystopian future where all clothes shops are really harshly lit, like they're a branch of Superdrug or something, and where all the clothes seem to have been designed by idiots, you have T K Maxx pretty much down to a tee.

I had to make a stop at Sainsbury's for essential items - crisps, sweets, washing powder, that sort of thing - and found myself in a queue behind a woman who had somehow managed to cram into her basket about 20 tins of sardines, 20 tins of tomato puree and several tins of some unidentified own-brand product, I'm guessing soup. Now, with all of this time to waste you might think I would be delighted at this, but clearly you'd be wrong; I may want to waste some time, but wasting time because some mad old bat with odd dietary habits can't put her tins in bags quickly enough is so annoying that any time-wasting benefit from it is lost.

My time-wasting and subsequent business concluded, I caught the bus home and for the second day in a row was bewildered by the number of apparently school-age children who boarded as well. I was going to complain about this in yesterday's post about getting old, and would complain about it now: however, having been exposed to around a minute and a half of right reactionary old scumbag John Gaunt shouting at someone who disagreed with him while I was picking up my dry-cleaning (er, on the radio in the background, I should point out; obviously if I'd encountered right reactionary old scumbag John Gaunt in the dry cleaners, and not long after I'd been listening to Los Campesinos!'s (grammar) version of Police Story, I may have done something... well, probably not all that regrettable, as it goes), I realise that complaining about how terrible kids are these days is the start of a slippery slope, and so I shan't do it.

(*) There are two additions being planned to the range of culinary delights available to shoppers in Ilford. I suppose the branch of Subway was inevitable, but next to door it they're building a Spud-U-Like. I cannot recall the last time I saw a Spud-U-Like, or, indeed, if I've ever seen one at all; I think there may have been one in Shepherd's Bush many years ago, but that's the only one I've ever spotted in the wild. I hope this isn't the result of another ironic internet campaign.

Not hilarious

I was going to write something about the effects of getting older tonight, but - hilariously, apart from not being hilarious - I have a bit of a headache and am going to have an early night (or a normal night, but an early night for someone who doesn't have work tomorrow).

My mum thinks that my headache may be down to climactic conditions, which is distinctly possible - there was a tornado that whipped around the flats just after I arrived home from my trudge around London (verdict on The Crack: not really worth the trip, unlike the spider sculpture outside), and odd weather does sometimes cause my head to hurt - but it could just be that I'm not used to all of the excitement. Good grief.

Ringtones?

So not only do I have a thoroughly miserable evening, with indignity and failure heaped upon me like... like... oh, I don't know, like an undignified failing thing, but now I have 'Ringtones', and unlike all of the other things iTunes occasionally tries to hopefully put in my menu, surely knowing that the clutter from the remnants of a million playlists I'll probably never revisit means that I'll remove them straight away, I can't work out how to remove this.

Obviously it would help if I spent a modicum of time trying to work out how to remove it rather than complaining about it, but it's been a very complicated evening.

Deperssing

Earlier this evening I found myself privy to a conversation about Wispas. "I've had about nine since they brought them back" said one person. "I can't stop eating them" said another. And this reminded me of a conversation I had the other day in which the person I was talking to, someone I'd consider quite a sensible fellow and not the type susceptible to invidious marketing campaigns, suggested that he was glad that Wispas had returned to our shelves.

What in the name of shitting crikey is going on, exactly?

The last time I ate a Wispa bar was around, ooh, about seven and a half years ago, because I won an Easter egg in a raffle and the only two eggs left to choose from were a Wispa egg and something I really didn't like, probably Bounty. I can't recall my exact feelings upon eating the Wispa bars but it was probably slight indifference - tasty enough to eat but not to actively think "hmm, I fancy a Wispa" next time I'm in the mood for some chocolate. And it seemed to me that this was the Wispa's rather unglamorous role in life, as something that people didn't exactly object to but never embraced in the way that they did, say, the KitKat Chunky.

And yet now the Wispa is back, apparently by public demand (which I'm sure must be down to some sort of hilarious ironic campaign somewhere that I don't know of because I'm so hopelessly out of touch - it can't just be those kids running on the stage with Iggy Pop, can it?) and normally sensible people are embracing it rather than sniffing suspiciously at it and saying "well, it's just an Aero that fancies itself, really". It all seems a bit depressing, and with there being so much else to be depressed about - football club messageboards, idiotic shit-stirring about the Scots because they've elected a worthwhile government, HMV adverts proclaiming it to be "the most wonderful time of the year" in early November - being a bit depressed about a chocolate bar as well seems rather unfortunate.

Preface

A change, they say, is as good as a rest. They're wrong, obviously; change is confusing and upsetting and causes all manner of unexpected problems. For example, I've recently changed my morning routine from being woken in the morning by the radio to being woken up by my computer playing music or previously-recorded radio programmes; this should be a change for the better - replacing the idiotic prattlings of apparently everyone who broadcasts at 7am with something I actually want to listen to - but ever since I switched over my sleep is all over the place, and I keep waking up wondering why my alarm hasn't gone off yet only to discover that it's half past 5 or something.

To be fair to Them, it's probably my fault for instigating this change at the same time as the clocks went back. But then, They don't have much to say about Greenwich Mean Time. They never have any thoughts about anything useful.

Bastards.

Diligent readers will note that this is the third attempt at Bus Shelters of Ilford. However, unlike the previous two attempts, this time I'm definitely not going to get bored of it after a whi... actually, no, that may well happen, come to think of it. But I definitely won't be deleting it because I'm in a bit of a bad mood because of some gir... actually, no, that's actually probably quite likely. However, this time it is definitely going to be quite good and... actually, no, we're fully into the realm of promises that can't be kept now. So, erm, cherish it while you can. Or something like that, anyway. It's still a good name for a page, anyway. As you can probably gather, I am slightly confused at the moment.