The Man From The South

Work Conversations

2008-08-09T05:41:00.000-07:00

Jay is siiting in my chair with his feet on the desk, talking loudly into a phone. I sit at his desk and nod hello to Andy. He nods back and rolls his eyes, tilting his head in Jay's direction. Jay continues his loud conversation.

"Yeah, so when I'm down we'll go and get wasted, get loads of drugs and women and go gambling." He's joking. I know he's joking because he always does it. I know that the twenty minutes of conversation that preceeded my entrance into the office would have been very serious business talk, involving Jay fretting about some client or other. Andy rolls his eyes at me again.

"Just check your emails or whatever for now mate," he says. "No problem," I tell him, "I'll just wait for David Brent over there to finish up.

Jay finishes his conversation with a stream of increasingly unlikely fictional scenarios that he and his friend will get into, regaled loudly to make sure Andy and I can hear him.

"Tim was just telling me him and his girlfriend were in Egypt and his missus bit into a date and there was a maggot inside it. That's fucking disgusting. Have you ever bitten into food and found an animal inside?" Jay asks Andy.

"No," Andy replies, " But I have been eating an animal and found food inside." He glances over to me with a smirk.

"Really?" Jay replies.

"Yeah, I found this dog at the side of the road and started eating it and inside I found a load of pork chops. It was great." I struggle to hold in my laughter. Jay looks at Andy in horror. "Really?" he asks again, genuinely horrified. Andy rolls his eyes at me and shakes his head slowly.

I thought the economy was in trouble?

2008-07-24T08:57:00.002-07:00

Lodger Killing

2008-07-23T05:27:00.000-07:00

Sitting on the sofa eating my dinner and vaguely watching the TV/reading the paper at the same time, the lodger comes in and sits down in the armchair. "Shall we watch this film?" he asks me, indicating one of the two DVDs on the table that came through the post for me. I shrug, I've no big plans. Why not.

When I finish eating I put the DVD in and take my plate to the kitchen. I go back in the living room and find the lodger peeling cloves of garlic, about eight so far. I sit down and ask him, "Are you ready?" indicating the DVD player. "Yes." he says. I press play, the opening credits roll, the lodger picks his garlic up and leaves the room. The film starts, the opening set-the-scene speech runs, the lodger is mixing something with an electric mixer in the kitchen (the garlic?), it drowns out the TV, I press pause. I wait. He stops mixing. I wait. Five minutes go past. He comes back in, sits down. I press play. He gets up to leave again. "Shall I pause it?" I ask. " No, it's ok," he says and goes back into the kitchen. I give up and press play. Another five minutes pass and he comes back in, sits back down. "What's happening?" he asks.

Time Flies

2008-07-08T11:50:00.000-07:00

I got offered a job today. Writing shit. A full time, writing shit job. I'm not going to take it. I find that confusing in a way, if it's actually possible to confuse yourself, but I'm also quite sure about it.

On this very day last year I was here...

...camping just feet from the sea, spending my days with sand between my toes, the sun on my face and a sense of freedom that I'm scared I'll one day forget forever. If you had told me then that in a year's time I would have a full time job writing shit, I would probably have taken that. Sure, there's other things I'd prefer to get paid for, spending my days with sand between my toes and the sun on my face being not too far down the list, but that would do.

I know some things now that I didn't know then. I know that, as cheesy as it sounds, trying to follow your dreams is hard work. I know that my mind needs space. I know that believing in yourself is both the most important and the hardest thing to do and I know that giving up after just 6 months of trying isn't an option.

Because I know these things I also know that one person paying me to write their shit is a million miles from another person paying me to write my shit. Which is why I'm not taking it. Yet.

Technology

2008-06-20T02:15:00.000-07:00

I'm standing on the train - I prefer to stand, sitting feels too permanent to me - and the guy next to me pulls something out of his pocket, flicks it open, holds it to his head and starts talking. It's a phone, obviously - I have something similar in my own pocket - but for some reason it looks completely bizarre to me. He's talking to someone, who could be anywhere in the world, in real time, just through this little pack-of-playing-cards sized thing. It's like a really good walkie-talkie. This thought consumes me for a few moments.

Then I notice a guy with a little iPod around his neck, listening through chordless headphones and I get to thinking that pretty much everyone on this train has got a phone, some dollars and maybe a little expensive gadget type thing. It would be a great opportunity for a highway robber type person but you don't really see them much these days, do you? What happened to good old fashioned highway robbery? I think to myself that I miss the days of a good old fashioned highway robbery but then I realise I've never experienced one and was born a good few decades too late.

I think it was all the champagne I drank last night.

Dandelion Thing

2008-05-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

Seeing as one of my two readers asked, I might as well let you know.

'Dandelion Thing' refers of course to the band formerly known as Dandelion Project, now working under the moniker Bob Clements and the Projects. Discussions are still ongoing to determine a permanent name. Currently in the pot are: The Bob Clements Effect; The Bob Clements Project (and variations on the Bob Clements theme, which I think is wearing a bit thin with us - it's the name of a friend's dog, by the way. Or rather ex-dog, which is how it came about); Tyrannosaurus Reg; 1579 (or: onefivesevennine); Gutty; Posology; Monilial.

Actually, I just got those last three by flicking to a page in a dictionary and writing the first word I saw. 'Posology' is "the branch of medicine concerned with the determination of appropriate doses of drugs or agents," which is actually quite subtly rock and roll. 'Monilial' on the other hand is a "Pathol denoting a thrush infection." I suppose some would argue that's pretty rock and roll too.

Compared to deciding on a name we're finding this creating noises thing somewhat easier. We're working on six currently, possibly coming to a MyFace page near you soon, if we ever do decide on a name. My favourite so far, if only for its title, is 'Pause, Bang, Do Stuff'.

Glaswegian Invaders

2008-05-15T12:34:00.000-07:00

I went for a ride round town after work yesterday, about 2.30pm. It was a bit like walking through a packed festival, except the drinking was on an industrial scale the likes of which I've not witnessed before. It was a good atmosphere then though - sure, they'd all taken over, and most of them seemed to be urinating wherever they felt like it, but they, and we, were having fun with it. People were high-fiving me as I pedalled, slowly, through the masses; songs were being sung; bus shelters were being sat on; tram stations had dozens of Scottish people at them, instead of trams.

I went to band practice in the evening. Our room is in an old mill about 1/4 mile from the stadium, on the main route between there and the centre of town. I arrived just after kick off and the streets were empty but for a few lost, drunken Scotsmen. When I came out there was a river of people pouring back into the centre. I could tell immediately that the result was not favourable to the Glaswegian invaders.

I considered continuing on my normal route home, which would have meant working my way through the crowds in my car, but stopped and turned around before it got too busy. It was a wise decision - I heard on the radio two minutes later that they were turning cars over just 300 yards from where I turned back.

There were a few solemn faces at Picadilly station this morning, 9.30am. Some still had cans of Tennants being tilted back and forth to them. The streets were a mess though - my bike tyres crunched over broken glass for most of the two mile ride to work and the smell was everywhere. The city stank of piss.

Writing Woes

2008-05-06T06:51:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking of giving this up. It's getting quite boring trying to find words for bland noises. I suppose you could argue that is the skill of the music reviewer. Fine, they can keep it.

Something else I'm getting bored of is advice offered, often without prompt, with regards to The Book (which is about this, if you're struggling to keep up/awake). I've got to the stage with it where I need some unbiased, constructive feedback, but often people read this as 'advice on the futility of trying to get anywhere in publishing'. I was reduced this week to spelling out to one such commenter that given his choice of giving up now, before I'd even really started, or having the balls to give it a go, despite possibly (and I quote) 'completely wasting my time', I'll take the latter, thank you very much.

Children on the Train

2008-04-24T02:18:00.000-07:00

Child One: WOW! Look at that stadium!
Child Two: It's massive! Wicked!
Child One: Mum, look at that stadium. Is it United's?
Mum: No, that's City's.
Child Two: It's rubbish.
Child One: Yeah, it should be knocked down.

Dandelion Update

2008-04-17T03:54:00.000-07:00

'The Project' are no more.

Dry your eyes though because there is a good reason for this; we had a breakthrough at practice last night. We've been playing for four weeks now, once a week, and have been trotting out a few standard covers that I used to play with 'The Best Covers Band in Southampton'. It was alright, fun to make loud noises again. Last night we finished a song and I held the last note, then improvised a riff from it, as I often do when given a guitar plugged into a loud amp. Our drummer kept playing along and our singer started singing. We stopped. What was that? Singer asks me. I dunno, I tell him, I just made it up. What were you singing? I dunno, he tells me, I just made it up. Sounded good , we all agree. We should write our own songs. I'd prefer that, drummer says. So would I, I say. So would I, singer says.

So we did and at least one of them sounds half decent already. It's exciting.

We've vowed never to play a cover again. Only problem is we need a new name now.

New Employee Induction Day

2008-04-15T06:41:00.001-07:00

We've already sat through four irrelevant and tedious half hour talks by senior dullards, thankfully missing out the planned 'ice breaker' section, when a young lady from the Equality and Diversity department is placed in front of us.

"What I'm going to do," she explains, "is to give each table a large sheet of paper and the name of a group of people commonly discriminated against. What I want you all to do is write on the paper some stereotypical characteristics associated with that group of people." There's silence in the room. I look at my fellow inductees around the table; all have blank expressions. Our speaker feels the need to clarify, "No one's going to judge you, we won't think that you think these things, just think of some ways they're described in the media. You know, like in newspapers." I look around again and am met by blank expressions. "Doesn't anyone else feel like they're in an episode of The Office?" I ask. The faces remain blank, with the exception of a bloke to my left, thankfully, who seems to agree with me.

We're given our sheet and a post-it with 'Blonde Women' written on it. I contain my amazement and listen on as the others on the table start suggesting adjectives: Dizzy, stupid, big breasted. This isn't happening, I decide. Either someone's playing a joke on me or I've fallen asleep and am dreaming it. Unfortunately I'm wrong. My table are trying to come up with more words to describe blonde women, descriptions that you apparently find in the newspapers. I decide to play the game and suggest 'slags' and 'shit drivers'.

The equality and diversity half hour ends with our words being read out (she balked slightly at slags, muttering something like 'well, that's perhaps a bit harsh', apparently unaware of the evident hypocrisy) and the other tables trying to guess what group we had been given. The overall message we are left to ponder: We shouldn't treat people who have different coloured hair or skin any differently. And there I was thinking I'd joined an intelligent, adult organisation, not a playgroup (although I suspect even children don't need to be told these things).

Spoke Too Soon

2008-04-10T05:01:00.000-07:00

It's pissing it down again now.

Moaning Works

2008-04-10T03:37:00.000-07:00

Clear blue skies and warm sunshine this morning.

Myth Busters

2008-04-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

Before I moved up here, stereotypical comparisons between 'The North' and 'The South' were never far from the surface. One particularly choice one came from two lads sharing a taxi with my girlfriend and I one night down South. When told that the pub was shutting in 10 minutes, so we'd bettter hurry up, my girlfriend commented innocently, "They're open all the time up in Manchester." "Yeah," replied one of our taxi companions, "but you don't get shot around here."

My girlfriend's Grandma was once offering me a custard tart and, while I was considering the offering, whispered,"Does he know what they are?" to my girlfriend. She then turned to me and asked, quite seriously, "Do you have these down there?"

She is also convinced that the South coast basks in year-round temperatures never dropping below 20 degrees and that rain is as welcome and rare as it is in drought ridden areas of Africa. Funny, I thought at the time. It's not quite so funny now because I sort of see where she's coming from - it rains here. All the time. I mean it - it's not a myth. I don't think there's been one day in the last three months when it hasn't rained.

In Southampton I used to ride my bike to work and walk when it was raining. During the year before I quit I didn't have to walk to work once - for a whole year. Two weeks ago, after two weeks of riding to work here, I fitted my bike out with full mudguards, front and back, because I was sick of sitting in my office soaking wet. I've even lived in Wales before and I don't remember it being this bad.

Numberplate Entrepreneur

2008-04-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

A friend writes: "Classic Blog material here but I can't be arsed to start a blog." Saves me doing it I suppose.

Late Saturday night...

So the door bell rings at 1am Sunday morning and a slightly pissed bloke with an odd European accent asks me if its my numberplate he's holding in his hand. I'm in me kecks and half asleep so say yeah, thinking he found it on the road and wondering why he couldn't have just left it next to the van. So I take the number plate off him at which point he gets slightly more animated and asks for money...yep he's selling me back my numberplate! I shut the door on him and I wander off back to bed to find the wife watching him out the window - the bloke eventually gives up on me and wanders across the road and rips the number plate of a neighbours car. He appeared to try knocking on the wrong door to do the same routine. Called the police to pick him up and go to bed (he was wearing the most obvious jacket possible).

This morning found another number plate outside our house and wondered how many more. Popped round the shop for milk to find a bloke in the next road inspecting the empty place where his number plate was - he had the same experience with said bloke.

Only conclusion of this one man, night time, money making venture...what the bleeping-firk was he on?!

---

Monday afternoon...

Youngest son has lost one of his gloves so I pop into Mothercare to buy some more. Mothercare - yep, the place that exclusively sell childrens clothes and kit. "Gloves please" I ask the woman behind the counter. "We don't have any" she says. "Uh?" I respond. "Out of season sir, they are winter items." "Madam, it was fucking snowing yesterday, since when was snow NOT glove wearing weather, you gormless shop drone?" I politely rebutt. "Sorry sir, but er..."

As I cycled home it started to hail just to prove my point.

Bored?

2008-03-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this rubbish it's possible you have enough time on your hands to waste reading even more rubbish I've written, so you might as well go and see what I think of various musical recordings here. Although, it's easier if I just link you directly to the ones I've written like this and this and...err...this.

Platform One, 9.20am

2008-03-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

I am joined on the platform by three girls, three pushchairs, each containing a baby, two children, two blokes and an inordinate amount of gold jewellery. One of the blokes is swigging from a can of lager and smoking a spliff.

As the train approaches the can is thrust onto the track. "Davo!" one of the girls chastises. "Wot?" Davo replies, "I'm keeping someone in a job," he states proudly, apparently without even a trace of irony.

As we stand together amongst the bikes and pushchairs, swaying with the gentle side to side movement of the train, Davo's mate says, "Bit like being drunk, innit?" Davo looks wistfully out of the window and muses, "I don't know what it feels like to be sober."

Sex, Drugs and Floral Inspiration

2008-03-11T09:49:00.001-07:00

In my pre-bike ride days, as life seems to be categorised now, I was in 'The Greatest Covers Band in Southampton'. That's not what we called ourselves, that's an actual quote. From my Mum.

Anyway, we used to have a lot of fun, drink a lot of beer, dance like fools and occasionally, but only very rarely, play stuff that you could describe as music.

A few weeks ago, whilst procrastinating yet again, I decided I was bored and needed to up my friend count around here from zero, so I posted a message on a certain 'community website' to see if I could find some like-minded individuals who would like to pretend to play punk rock music whilst getting drunk together.

Next Wednesday, I take my guitar and amp to a rehearsal room down the road to meet Martin, Tom, Andy and Martin's mate. I've met Martin, in a pub one night, but none of us have met any of the others before. We're just going to see what happens.

The rehearsal rooms needed a band name to make the booking. We don't have one, obviously, so I had to make it up on the spot. Next Wednesday night Dandelion Project will be born. Yeah, yeah, I know it's shit.

Jon or Jonathan?

2008-03-07T09:10:00.000-08:00

So, I start work on Monday. Not proper work, you understand. Part-time work. I still have a book to write.

I went for a rather excrutiating 'meet the team' morning this week, where I was introduced variously to a number of people who's names and jobs I've forgotten. Most seemed very pleased to see me which I have taken as a bad thing - they've probably got lots of work for me to do. I was also called 'luvvie' quite a lot, mainly, but not exclusively, by rotund women who gave the air of being at least 20 years settled in their current employment. I'm not being horrible - it's just a fact. They do it in shops up here too and I'm sure I never hear them saying it to anyone else. 'Are you alright there luvvie?' Maybe I give the air of a little boy lost. I've yet to be asked if I know where my mummy is, so I guess that's a bonus.

At least it temporarily bypasses the other situation I am always faced with when I start any new employment. The name on my passport, birth certificate and bank account, and therefore all job applications, is Jonathan. Most people I met on my 'meet the team' day asked, as everyone does, 'Do you prefer Jon or Jonathan?' I don't mind, I tell them. 'Well, what do your friends and family call you?' Percy.

That always gets them.

Kicking and Screaming

2008-02-29T10:58:00.000-08:00

I don't want to do it. One of the main reasons I went on that bike ride was because I was so thoroughly fed up with the one I used to do. When I came out of the interview I said, to no one in particular, 'I really don't want to do that. Please, please don't offer it to me.' Instead of checking my phone constantly in the following hours, anxious I might not hear it and miss 'The Call', I left it in another room. They phoned the house phone, cunning bastards. I can't ignore that one. They offered it to me and seemed slightly perplexed by my less than enthusiastic reaction.

I tell them I'll phone them back and spend five minutes pacing the living room, trying to work out how I can conceivably turn it down. I can't. We need the money and I can't continue this life of retirement at 30 for much longer without it becoming exceedingly unfair on my other (fully employed) half. I haven't 'worked' conventionally since 3 March 2007. One whole year off. Sadly, on Monday 10 March, I will be gracing the corridors of my new employers and sitting at a desk to do Admin Bollocks, probably asking myself how I managed to end up there again, in a place that is both new to me but also strangely, depressingly, excrutiatingly familiar.

I'm trying to look at the positives and have been consoling myself by walking around town observing vocations I am thankful I don't have to do. Today's happy conclusion was that at least I don't have to work in Greggs.

Goin' Round Shop

2008-02-21T04:20:00.000-08:00

The shops that serve most of this estate are a three minute walk from the house. They look, from the outside, a bit like a derelict crack house. The only shutters up during opening hours are the ones covering the doors, the rest are left shut. They are, of course, all covered in graffiti. Bad graffiti.

The large shop is run by an asian family who keep at least four family members in the shop at a time, presumably in the likely event that someone's going to start some trouble. The patrons seem to be a mix of teenaged mums with prams, drunken 40-something year old men buying cheap export lager, drunken 30-something year old men buying cheap export lager, drunken 40-something year old women buying export lager and drunken 30-something year old women buying cheap export lager. You are likely to find hanging around outside at least one of the following: A large, ferocious-looking dog being inadequately restrained by a small child; a large, ferocious-looking dog on its own, completely unrestrained; a man with an open can of beer talking casually to an old lady; the local prostitute.

The chip shop is called...actually, I don't know what the chip shop is called because there is no sign. It's just a shop with a big metal frying unit and a woman behind it dishing out scallops, amongst other things.

Another hole in the graffiti covered metal wall contains the post office - an empty room with a glass screen running along the right hand wall, with a small, slightly scared looking girl working behind it. There's never anyone in it - they presumably get their dole paid straight into their bank accounts. I know I do.

Alright love?

2008-02-02T10:44:00.000-08:00

We went to the pub last night (a rare treat for me these days). Karaoke was being 'performed' in celebration of Kaylie's 18th birthday, so a banner on the wall told me. I suspect she's been a regular for a good five years or so. The pub is about the size of a living room, full of people and thick with smoke. The barmaid stands proudly, cigarette in hand, infront of a 'Britain Goes Smoke Free' poster, put up, presumably ironically, behind the bar.

I take my Guinness coloured (but not tasting) drink to the pool table and play with my two companions. My attention is averted to the karaoke in the main bar as the first chords of an Oasis song ring out - I had wondered how long it would take. A large, hairy and clearly very drunk man has the microphone in his fist and he starts shouting the lyrics very loudly, joined by everyone else in the pub. Some people get up on their seats to sway along. I note, with a smile to myself, that he actually sounds better than Liam Gallagher, although that's not much of an achievement.

As we finish our last drinks (surprisingly they do have a closing time) a tall, middle-aged man staggers into the pool room. He has a large, red and bleeding circular wound covering a quarter of his face, over his left eye. It takes me a second to realise it's the same size as the drinking end of a pint glass. He looks around at me, my girlfriend's brother and finally my girlfriend. 'Alright love?' he slurs, wobbling on his beer-filled legs. My girlfriend ignores him and he staggers back into the bar.

I'm reminded not for the first time of a TV show I've seen once or twice - Shameless. I'm living in Shameless.

Scallop Butty

2008-02-02T07:05:00.000-08:00

225 miles isn't, in some circumstances, very far to travel. On a plane, for example. In other circumstances it's a very long way. That would be about four days work in my old job and sometimes it felt like whole lifetimes were lived through those miles. For the purposes of this Blog, however, it serves as the distance between Southampton and Manchester, a journey I've made many, many times but never as permanently as I did at the beginning of this year - I've moved up here.

Leaving the weather, accents and price of beer to one side for now, they are still very different places. I shall demonstrate:

Go into a 'chippy' and ask for a scallop, what do you get? A small white blob of nicely pan-fried mollusc? No - a deep fried piece of potato. I had a 'scallop butty' the other day as a sort of initiation. It tasted like a big chip and not at all unpleasant.