I ain’t afraid of no ghost [22/100]

mussitation – (mus-ih-TAY-shun) muttering to oneself in a very low voice, if any or soundlessly making speaking movements.

It’s been a strange couple of days. This christmas lark is stressful. Work has been a bit mad, but there’s been a lot of staff in, so that’s been sort of lovely and has provided lots of hilarity. Well done, gang.

I went into town with my dad before work yesterday as he had the day off. We went for lunch and then he bought some books from the shop for mother’s christmas, then we had another sit down and some hot chocolate. It was really nice, actually…
It was on Sunday that I realised I like the shop most at christmas time because it’s ridiculously busy and everyone seems to be in a good mood. People, even if they’re stressed at christmas shopping, seem to not be so dickish as usual. Well, I’ve not encountered as many pricks than normal anyway…

Today, I was working a shift I’ve never done before, 12.30-9. I didn’t think anything was worse than 11.30-8, but it appears I was wrong. So tiring. Especially annoying that I got a bus at 11.20 this morning and didn’t actually get to work until 1.10pm. Curse you snow… and also BARROWMAN! [fist shake]
I had a half hour break at 3pm and then my lunch hour at 6.30pm. Mmm… fake lunch. I spent the hour wisely, by heading out to buy a present for my secret santa. I bumped into Lee on the way and he joined me and was in awe of the selection of tiny beers available in the shop I ended up at.
Good ol’ father came into town to pick me up from work and take me to Baz’s. God knows how long it woulda taken to get home otherwise. Snow is delightful to look at and occasionally play in, but it’s a pain in the arse. I got there, exchanged some presents, couldn’t be bothered anymore and felt bad for Jill, so came home. I would like to move away soon, please. But first, let’s do this whole christmas thing!

Lions and tigers and bears [7/100]

Yesterday I went to work where we were understaffed and, despite what anybody says, we were ridiculously busy. It didn’t just “feel busy”, it was genuinely hectic from about 1-4.30pm. Take that, sir!

Ahem. Yes, so work was insane, but I remained in a good mood for the day. I think this was because everyone else seemed chipper too, and that’s always a nice thing.
I had an interesting discussion with Pete on the bus about the future. I think he’s starting to believe I don’t enjoy these deep conversations, but he is mistaking my thoughtful stares into the distance for the blankness of boredom. I do like talking, but I like to listen and think about things before answering too. I hope no-one else thinks they’re boring me when they’re really really not.

I told Lee about my time away in London. He was in awe of my very peculiar Wednesday night. I like having stories. There’s something weirdly satisfying about managing to tell a story with little to no interruption and having a bit of a dry throat by the end of it. A tiny sense of achievement. A bit like when you laugh so much it begins to feel really healthy. It’s refreshing.

I didn’t get that job I had the interview for the other day. I got a bit down about it last night, then told myself to happy the fuck up. I do keep worrying though. There’s only so much longer I can cope without deciding that I should go to university, just to have something else to say when people ask what I’ve been up to since I left school. The fact is, it’s really fucking difficult to get a job right now and that’s demoralising, but I’m just going to have to bide my time.

Today I saw Baz and Amber for the first time in what feels like ages. It’s been so long that I didn’t know Baz has got another place at Disneyland next year, so that’s a bit good. We had food which turned out to be 25%, which was also a bit good. Our waitress was very funny, very chirpy. Amber raised the fine point afterwards though, that if we’d in a bad mood, she would have grated on us. As it stood, though, we exchanged witty banter and she told me she loved me for my admirable number of side orders, which meant she was in the running to win a bottle of wine. (The staff member to sell the most sides in a week wins a bottle, she had apparently won it two weeks previous and before we came in, she wasn’t doing so well this week.)
Interesting. I enjoy it when you can have a conversation with someone you’ll probably never speak to again. I like it when at work, I can have a chat with customers about things. Not always books, which is quite fun too. A woman yesterday started talking to me about tennis as she was buying Andre Agassi’s book and she apparently used to fancy him, but now quite likes Nadal. I said I was partial to a bit of Federer, but she reckoned he was a bit up himself. Oh, what larks.

You’re in my eyes

That fake-book post seems to have brought in an overwhelming number of views. I may now have to, not unlike the BBC, censor my content or the record number of hits could become a record number of complaints.

I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

I was out of action at the start of the week with throat-death but still soldiered on to work. What a trooper! Sunday was enjoyable. And I managed to shock Lee, or Captain Filth. This was before we opened at 10.30am too, so I felt after that, I deserved to take the rest of the day off. I didn’t though… because of the whole being-a-trooper thing I mentioned earlier. Then on Tuesday night, he turned up and I managed to freak him out again. I am apparently the only person who has ever done this. I am quite proud.

I had a productive day on Tuesday (ie: I was up before 9am). I met up with Amber at 10.30ish and we caught a bus into town, took lots of photos and went in search of good comics. At 1pm, we went to Slains and sat with lemonade and resisted ordering food until Garry and chums arrived. Amber was worried about meeting him as I’d shown her some of his artwork on his blog, which is amazing (You heard me, Milne: AMAZING.) and she was threatened. I think this made him blush. It was sweet.
We ate some lunch and I led the way to Retrospect, which is a shop I often forget about despite it being ace. There’s always at least one garish top, but I will still always want to buy it. This week’s one was a bright orange and black one that looked a bit like the top half of a wetsuit. Garry and I mused over what the bottom half would be like. Yikes.
All too soon, I had to make my way to work, so I bid the lovely boy a good day and head to work, but not before promising again to get down to Dundee to visit him soon. I am rubbish, so haven’t been down and I’ve been saying it for nearly a year now. Therefore, this December I will definitely go down and if I don’t, he has the right to do a complicated boogie along my spine (is it obvious I’m listening to Jarvis’ ‘Further Complications’ right now?) .

This week in the cinema, I have seen Couples Retreat and Zombieland. The former I mainly went to see due to Serafinowicz being in it, who was brilliant. Zombieland was also far too good. I forgot how much I love Woody Harrelson, that crazy vegan! Also, as I had been led to believe beforehand, the cameo in it is spectacular. I’m shocked that I managed to avoid finding out who it was before seeing it.
It was Laura and I who went to Zombieland and we got to experience one of our five-a-day adrenaline rushes: social awkwardness. As per usual, other people were sitting in our seats when we arrived at the screen. Easy enough procedure, I’m usually more than happy to ask the people to move, but this time I was very tired and saw they were being occupied by loud, smelly rugby boys. I didn’t feel up to confronting them, so we sat in the seats directly behind them, in the knowledge that if we were sitting in someone else’s seats, we’d either a) say, “Oh, I’m sorry!” and move further down the row or b) do some fake acting and exclaim, “Oh, are we? I’m sure we’re… oh, no wait, we’re D10 and 11! D! Sorry about that!”
The trailers were due to start at 9.10pm, so when that time came, the screen was still pretty empty, so we reasoned we might not have been sat in anyone else’s seats. As soon as we voiced this to each other, the screen started to fill up. Every time someone walked up the steps, we’d start nervously laughing. It was tense. We were pathetic. People kept continuing up the stairs and we’d breathe a sigh of relief until more people came in. Baz was killing herself laughing silently at how rubbish we are. I told her that extreme sports can eff off, social awkwardness is more exhilarating. We really are goons.
Today I was back at das Kino with Keri. It seemed all that was on was Love Happens, which looks so so boring and unoriginal and… Jennifer Aniston-y that I’d rather splash acid onto my face, and the Invention of Lying, which I’d seen already. Fortunately, Keri hadn’t, so we got to avoid Love Happens. Hurrah!
I’ve still not seen UP and I really want to. Not in 3D though, I don’t want to have to pay to see it. Imagine!

A thing I learned this week is that there is actually an English word for schadenfreude. It is ‘epicaricacy’. This is exciting if you’re a nerd like me. But you probably already knew it.

What else did I want to ramble about?
…OH! Again, at work this week, Scott began to compile a list of books about time travel. I recommended Stevie Fry’s ‘Making History‘ and in return, he showed me one he’d found on his Wikipedia list of Time Travel novels, ‘Time After Time‘ purely because it’s about Jack the Ripper… who gets hold of a time machine and goes to San Francisco in 1979. Amazing!

It dawned on him that he’d actually seen the film of this. I told Kerry about it last night and we’ve concluded we need to get a copy of it. It could be the new Deidre Hall Story for Speccy Nerdy Fucknuts Film Club.
Apparently the sequel to Time After Time is released next year and is called ’Jaclyn the Ripper’. The premise: “H.G. Wells chases Jack the Ripper through time again—only Jack has transmogrified into a beautiful woman.” Wow. I have ordered the first book off Amazon. It’s going to be terrible, I can’t wait.
Find out more about Karl Alexander here and the books the Library Journal praised as “Quite readable.” WOW! 

In other news, I’m sad that I’m not at Karaoke Circus tonight. Especially as this time last year, I was in old London town and it’d be good to be there in October again. But on the plus side, it means I get to watch Nick Griffin on Question Time. Someone on the Aberdeen Music site had pasted the email he sent to his idiots onto the site, but was keen to point out that, as a very very anti-BNP man, the email was not sent to him:

“Fellow British Patriot

Question Time is scheduled for 10.35pm tomorrow evening (Thursday) and will be a milestone in the indomitable march of the British National Party towards saving our country.
Our violent opponents on the far Left have promised to lay siege and barricade the studio venue, because they know only too well that this could be THE key moment that propels the BNP into the big time.
Never before have we had the chance to present our patriotic, common sense solutions to Britain’s nightmare situation to the public at large in such a prominent fashion.
However, members and supporters must be aware that this show will be a stage-managed farce organised in a specific way to leave several impressions:
The audience will be hand-picked and overtly hostile – thus giving the impression that the British people at large must be hostile to BNP views.
The panellists will be overtly hostile, even the non-political guests will be hostile. Everyone will be hostile – this will leave the impression to non-informed viewers that BNP views have minority status.
I will, no doubt, be interrupted, shouted down, slandered, put on the spot, and subject to a scrutiny that would be a thousand times more intense than anything directed at other panellists.
It will, in other words, be political blood sport.
But I am relishing this opportunity, and I know that, despite the stage-managed hostile audience and panellists, YOU, the ordinary members, supporters and voters of the BNP, will be in the studio with me as I take on the corrupt, treacherous swine destroying our beautiful island nation.

Yours sincerely for Britannia

Nick Griffin MEP

Chairman, BNP”

Riiiight… Of course, anyone who opposes him on tv is doing so purely to “sex up” the show, aren’t they? Those sexy filthy-lefty slags! It couldn’t possibly be because they disagree with him and everything he stands for- don’t be ridiculous!
I sort of feel sorry for him a bit if he really thinks this is going to be “THE key moment that propels the BNP into the big time“
Poor, deluded little Fat Hitler.
My favourite part is probably, “our patriotic, common sense solutions to Britain’s nightmare situation“. Common sense. Forgive me, readers, but: LOL. When did he turn into the Pub Landlord?
And when did he think it was acceptable to interrupt two guys just hanging out and having coffee..?

What a dick.

Guerilla

Recently, we’ve been noticing strange things afoot in the shop. For a number of weeks now, we have been discovering library books that have found themselves on our shelves with fake covers on them which in no way relate to what’s inside. Some of them are brilliant.

I apologise for the picture quality, I took these in a rush at work yesterday…

Rolf Harris Explains The Uncanny Valley.

12 Good Reasons For Giving Up Hope.
The cover of this is just black. Inside, the actual book is an old edition of Darwin’s Origin of the Species.

Harrison Ford’s Guide To Loneliness.

And my personal favourite…

The Wrong Towel Can Kill.

As far as I’m aware, they’re not doing us any harm. The original books that are inside aren’t from our shop, so nobody’s messing with stock. These things cropping up just brighten the days!
If I caught anyone doing it, I’d be tempted to turn the other way and let them get on with it.
Whoever you are, I salute you.

The rule of three

Tuesday nights are strange. I work at this time and I’ve grown used to the fact that it, during the last hour, gets eerily quiet (which I do quite enjoy). I’m only in for three hours on a Tuesday, 5pm until we close at 8pm. (Incidentally, not many people realise we’re open until 8pm four nights a week. Presumably this is because we’re more of a walk away from our bredrin in the shopping centre down the road who close at 6pm… layabouts!)  Typically, nights pass with nothing out of the ordinary happening. It’s often so quiet that we easily finish what we need to do and can keep each other amused by telling stories.
Last night, for each hour I worked, I encountered one eccentric customer, like a retail version of A Christmas Carol. I am using the term ‘eccentric’ lightly as I can’t think of a better word. I wouldn’t like to say ‘peculiar’ because the last one especially was just a normal person, but just whose honesty I don’t encounter often. I also wouldn’t like to say ‘mental’ as I don’t believe this phrase is socially acceptable and anyway, that only applies to the first one… ‘Memorable’ is probably best.
I should just get on with explaining and then you can see why I’m struggling to describe them adequately, whilst at the same time remaining polite.

At around 5.30pm, there wasn’t much to do. I stood behind the till with Joss waiting for a man hovering by our humour section to come and let us scan his books (not a euphemism). A woman in a brown suede jacket walked by and glared briefly at Joss. We looked at each other with furrowed brows of bemusement as she continued walking. Later, she returned to the till and asked me where she’d find travel books. She had a thick eastern european accent and one very sharp front tooth. I took her up to the travel section (not a euphemism), then she asked me where our religious books were kept so I took her there too.
“Where are the bibles?” she questioned.
“Just this bottom shelf here…” I answered.
It was then that she spotted the Art of Happiness which looks like this…

She began to laugh hysterically. I hovered awkwardly as I do around seven times a day at the bookshop, not too sure if I should leave or not. She turned to me, pointed at the Dalai Lama’s face and said, “His face… it looks like a bible, don’t you think?”
“Uh… okay…” I replied.
Then she finished up with the very profound and not at all ill-informed exclamation, “They’re so clever, those Indian people…”
I just stared at her bewildered as she looked at the bibles. I then walked away.

The second person came in whilst Janet and I were at the till. A woman with straggly hair and glasses asked us if there was a science talk happening. I told her she was probably after the other shop as they deal with all these types of events, we’re the squares who don’t put on anything interesting like that. Janet had gone off to track down Lee to see if he had any more information by this point, but the woman had pulled out a brochure from her bag (not a euphemism) and found the talk she was after listed. Here she noticed that it was in fact happening the next day and kept banging on about how stupid she was. Eventually she went to leave, shaking her head and said “I’m so thick! …I’m dyslexic.”
Neither Janet or myself knew if she was joking or not but both made the split-second decision that it was probably best to take her seriously and we both sort of smiled and nodded. Janet even said “That’s okay!” as she had been during the woman’s claims of stupidity. As she walked away, she turned and said “I’m not dyslexic.” and left. Perplexing.

The third memorable customer of the night again approached the till. Oddly enough, he too was after the talk at the shop down the road. We explained to him that he was a day early and that it was at the other store. He laughed this off and told us how he’d run past that shop believing it to be the wrong one. He was a very sweet guy and asked how it all worked. Lee, who has joined us from down there, filled him in on how the night typically goes. The man asked what sort of age range of the people who went were and if it was a good place to meet new people.
It was here that he said heartbreaking, “I just want to get out of the house and meet new people because I split up with my wife recently and to be honest with you, I’m not taking it very well and have been feeling incredibly lonely…” My first reaction was to nervously laugh due to not being used to strangers being this open with me, but I fought it and again, smiled encouragingly and nodded. He left, hopefully, feeling positive due to Lee explaining that it’s a nice night out.

Now, I never would have thought that working in a bookshop would draw up such intriguing characters who can make you scratch your head, grin like a buffoon or feel inordinately sad at the drop of a hat. With the highs come the lows, I guess.
My worst ever experience was when a very timid woman came up and quietly said, “Excuse me, I was just wondering if you had any books on how to cope with losing a baby…” I immediately wanted to burst into tears. I felt numb for the rest of the day just thinking about how terrible the whole thing was and that this woman had to turn to a book to help her get through a horrendous time. I realised this might not have been the case. She may have had people around her who were looking after her and helping her and perhaps a book was just that extra bit of security she needed. It’s hard not to jump to conclusions in certain cases, but also very hard to remain detached from certain things.
Who knows, though? Perhaps the lonely man and the not-really-dyslexic woman will get together. That would be nice.

I like to write these encounters down in case I forget…

The Degenerate Parade

Recurring theme of this week looks set to be: Assholes.

…But more on that later.
Last week consisted mainly of frustration at my lack of ability to talk about myself. Had to fill out a very important application form and talk about aspirations, ambitions and motivations. I have it all in my head, but limiting it to 9 lines without sounding like a moron was tricky. In the end I opted for sounding like a moron.

On Wednesday, we spent a lovely day being indulgent. Rory, John and I walked to the Mains and proceeded to stay there for about six hours. We sat outside in the sunshine that took us by surprise and led us to exclaim “What a lovely day!” every twenty minutes or so. We were soon joined by Ryan and Laura and generally had a very nice time and concluded we should do it more often. Then we (minus Ryan) headed back to John’s, watched some Frasier and rolled our eyes affectionately at Rory. Rory and Baz soon left, we continued with some Frasier, then headed to mine to copy a cd and watch the IT Crowd, allowing John’s love of Matt Berry to blossom.

I don’t think I did anything on Thursday…
Friday was spent in the company of my father, continuing the application form and watching Airplane. In the evening, I was far too tired and opted to go for a little nap before heading out to Pete’s birthday party. As soon as I went to put my head on the pillow, lovely Pam called and I got up and caught a bus to her place instead. We walked to Shane’s whilst discussing our futures. We’re very deep, y’know? We got to his and I listened in on their kerazy university chat. Sounds stressful. We headed out to Pete’s just after 10pm and proceeded to indulge in good-conversation and foolishness until gawd-knows what time. Me and Shane slept there and left at about 10am, feeling like death. I got on a bus, came home to an empty house, had a shower and had to go meet my mother in town again to pretend I didn’t want to throw up while failing to make an attempt at eating lunch. ‘orrible.

Eventually got home at about 3.30pm and went straight to bed with the idea that if I got some sleep then, I could go see Jeffrey Lewis at night. Woke up at 6.30 and couldn’t force myself to move. I knew I’d inevitably regret not going to see that lovely man in concert again, but I just couldn’t handle it. I watched lots of Frasier to make up for it. Eventually fell asleep again, but woke up shattered for work. Can’t really remember much of the day. Nothing too eventful happened. A fair share of irritating, impatient customers came in, one in particular stressed me out amazingly and so: sympathy hugs ensued for Kirsten.
I sighed. I came home. I finished series 1 of Frasier.

I was looking forward to work on Monday as I often do, but it was clear from my arrival that the evening would be… tricky. As I walked up the shop to the staff-only door, I spied Cat-Man. Oh woe. I don’t want to divulge too much information about his peculiar bookshop habits on such a public forum in case by some mad coincidence, he comes across this page. However what I can say is that he comes in frequently, keeps us chasing around after things for him for far too long and once left a stack of Jehova’s Witness magazines on one of the flats fanned out in a lovely presentation. He is… strange to say the least. Anyway, he had accosted Julie at this point and I managed to sprint past them to hide downstairs for half an hour before I was due to start. A regular occurence. By the time 5pm came around, he was still there and had managed to engage Joan. Poor lady. I jumped into the travel section at one point to hide. He eventually left at 5.30 (but he came back for a bit later, as predicted.) and had been there for an hour. Wow.

I presumed this would be the highlight of the usually slow evening, but no. I was standing at the till with Pete, both of us re-pricing (almost a year there and this was my first shot ever with a price-gun!) various items when a guy came over and asked if he could try to buy a book with his business credit card. I said we’d give it a shot. When it came to him typing in his PIN, it said ‘PIN locked.’ I told him this.
“So what can I do then?”
Pete wasn’t with a customer, so offered up the friendly advice that he’d probably just have to go to the bank and get a new card. He started to say that he presumed that even though it was a business card, it’d work in the same way as a regular credit card.
What the man heard was “You’re an idiot, you don’t know how a credit card works.” which was obviously not said at all. He took this as a personal insult, had a rant at Pete about how he was a thirty-five year old man and he knows how a credit card works, all the while, Pete tried to explain that he’d asked what to do next, so he was just trying to help.
The man’s ‘prick’ status was upgraded to ‘wanker’ when he said the following, “And anyway, I was actually being served by this girl who was doing a perfect job, so why don’t you butt out and get on with your stickering?”

If I’d been thinking on my feet, I’d have told him that I was refusing to serve him due to the fact that despite him being thirty-five, he obviously didn’t know how to treat people and that just because he had a business-account didn’t mean that I respected him any more than anybody else. Also, I would have pointed out that his pinstriped shirt was not flattering and that I was sure that I was soon to be hit by one of the buttons popping.

As it happens, I wasn’t thinking on my feet, and so: sympathy hugs ensued for Peter.

He didn’t even leave the shop right away, he continued to browse. I walked past him later and he smiled a you-did-good-Kid-don’t-you-find-me-attractive? smile at me. I glared. This is my small act of rebellion. I’m more than willing to give this information online, as if this man by some twist of fate comes across this blog, he might learn something, whereas Cat-Man’s harmless, really.

That put us on a downer for the rest of the night. The fact that we had nothing to do and no customers in didn’t exactly help. Slowest. Night. Ever.
Finally it ended, I bought a copy of Ghost World and caught a bus on which, a drunk old man threw up. Bleak.

Today I had to do some tests for a job I applied for a while back. Just numeracy and literacy tests. Apparently I passed as I’ve an interview with them on Friday. It’s a strange time just now. Allow me to type hypothetically for a moment. If I get this job in the metropolis in summer, great, but I’ll need some money to get myself down there. Working at the bookshop is lovely (except on the days when there are more pricks than kicks) and I adore working with everyone there, but I seriously need money to get to London and I can’t live on the wages I get from the minimal hours I do there. I just don’t wanna screw them around at an already stressful time. But c’est la vie! Might not even get this other job, might not even get the one in London, but you’ve gotta take the risks…

Realised that exactly four years ago today, we were getting ready for Granny’s funeral. Fuck, I can’t believe it’s been that long already. Insane in the membrane. I should buy some Happy Faces as a tribute to her. We bloody loved Happy Faces!

Plan for the rest of the week? Probably run into more assholes against my will. Would quite like to do something tomorrow. Possibly go to the cinema, not been for a while. Cineworld, though, so I don’t need to part with any more cash-dollars. Spent too much money I should be saving last night on the following…

Me and Amber are due to go see Let The Right One In at some point this week. It’s only showing at the Belmont though. And I’m not a student, so I predict £lots.

‘Til next time, happy gang.

Oh! Oh… oh?

I woke up after 4 hours sleep at 8.15am. But in all fairness, I fell asleep whilst watching Big Train, which is the best way to fall asleep. Anyway, the day got off to a bad start when I couldn’t find my iPod and knew that I’d be music-less for my lunch and on the way home. Balls. I got a lift to work and was greeted by the beardy ones.
It was a pretty nice day. I like it when it’s all good people in the shop. We all sat round at our break and pissed ourselves laughing and told stories. It was just generally nice. Like a pub. That probably makes more sense in my head. I’ve always preferred pubs to clubs. I like to sit down and tell stories and listen to stories and laugh. Good. All good stuff.

Anyway, 5.30pm came around and I left. I forgot to get a lift of Baz, so waited ages for a bus. At the bus stop is where I discovered a plus to not having headphones in. I was just sitting, eating some hideous chips from a fast food emporium when a women next to me said, “Hungry?” and started talking to me. She really opened up for a stranger, which was odd. She sounded lonely, so I hope everything turns out dandy for her, she was a nice sort. She’s from Ireland and wants to move back, but her job as a nurse, her daughter and her ex-husband (who she might be getting back with, mmhmm) are all here. She said someone she sort of helped look after at the hospital died today and was talking about how she had a cup of tea with the bereaved. Odd. The things she was saying reminded a bit of when my granny was dying, about how she could hear us and stuff. I told her this, so I suppose I opened up to her a bit… I always rely on the kindness of strangers? Anyway, some drunk came up to us, asked for a chip, I gave him all the ones I had left and felt my karma points go up. (I would have rather they went to some homeless fella though…)
The friendly woman got on her bus and told me to take care. Maybe I’ll leave my iPod at home more often. I love it when strangers initiate conversation with you. I like the idea of it even more since reading Yes Man, I think. It was all due to that one guy on Danny Wallace’s bus saying “Say yes more.” that his entire life changed, so maybe a part of me hopes this will happen. Although what they could say to change my life is beyond me…

Speaking of Danny Wallace, I was reading Join Me at the till today. I really must buy it and Friends Like These. My book list grows forever longer and I keep starting books, then buying new ones and neglecting the previous, so I’ve got about twenty on the go so far. It’s a hard-knock life.

In other news, I feel like a right royal sex criminal. Whilst browsing flickr for a picture of Rich Fulcher as Eleanor, I came across a video of him posted by Steve Agee. This prompted me to see several videos he’d taken of him and lovely Matt Berry just hanging out. THIS prompted me to see several photos he’d taken of Matt. Shamefully, I think I managed to sneak a look at all of them. I felt a bit weird doing so. It was like perving on someone’s private photo albums. However, I did enjoy the one of Matt and the Dalek. He looks so happy. It’s sweet, but why does he never look that happy with we, his nerdy fans?

I am tired as funk and it’s not even 11pm. I’m doing overtime tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m not in until 11.30am tomorrow though, so that’s not too bad. I’m on ’til 8pm though, that is so bad… Ah well, it’s all about the company you keep, isn’t it?

Alas, the protesters descend

I’ve just caught my first glimpse of Free Tibet protesters at the olympics. And John Ray got arrested for filming them. He was “roughed up” by Chinese officials and bundled into a van despite the fact that the media are allowed to film what they like at the moment (but any peaceful protesting gets dealt with quickly enough… Hmm…)
“I spent a lot of time, Steve, eating dirt.”
More here.
Here’s hoping it works. I like them Tibetans, they’ve not done anything wrong… I believe that exact phrase may have been said in parliament at some point…

Enough of my superior political knowledge, on with the show (TSMGO)! I went to the dentist yesterday, where I was told sweet FA. I’ve got to phone on Friday if it’s still ruining my best years. Boo! Work yesterday was interesting. It was my last shift with Craig, who reminds me of Jonatton Yeah?. I presumed he hated me or thought I was thick, but he’s just a very dry, witty, intellectual type. Anyhoo, I liked him and now he’s gone and it was sad. But I did meet Pete and a lovely elderly lady who came in and spoke with me for about twenty minutes about biographies I’d recommend her. She seemed sweet and very grateful that I spoke to her. I wished I was wearing a cowboy hat that I could touch, wink and say, “Just doin’ ma job, ma’am…” Alas, I only had a trilby.

I walked down to the beach to scrounge a lift off Baz. As I was crossing the bridge, I saw this… let’s call him a poor excuse for an asswipe (god dammit) pissing against the fucking bridge. Broad daylight, busy-ish for the time it was and he’s pissing and letting it all run down the bridge. What an arsehole. Why are these people allowed to live with the rest of us?  Degenerate scumbags, I want them all killed. Just wait until Charlie Brooker’s prime minister, with his minister of defence, Chris Morris… Aaah, sunshine, lollipops and rainbows everywhere… sort of. Right, I digress. So, sickened by this wank-stain on the duvet of the world, I continued onwards whilst texting Vlad and Keri and Selly, then me and Baz drove home. About an hour later, she was back with Keri and Jill and we went on an adventure. Who would have thought watching a tissue flap out a window would provide so much entertainment?

I came home and watched the repeat of How Not To Live Your Life. I really wanted to like it ‘cos it’s Dan Clark and I’m with Linehan on the crappiness of people criticising shows solely based on their first episode. That sounds like a shit set-up. In actual fact, it was pretty promising. Apart from it being heavily scripted (well… I know you’ve got to script sitcoms, but it was very obvious and you know when you can sometimes tell when something’s so genius that it can only be improvised?) and pretty wooden, it could be pretty good, so I’ll reserve judgement until the series is out.

Was supposed to be “doing lunch” with the ladies today, but Jill double-booked, so me and Baz are gonna go for a chinese. I’m afraid this means I’ll have to leave you. I’m sorry, I love and miss you.

I don’t want to end on a down note, so have this…

Dixon Bainbridge: Krakatoa in ‘62, we stayed on to watch the hanging!
Hamilton Cork: God she struggled, it was as if she didn’t want to die!
[They laugh]
Dixon Bainbridge: …Great wedding!

Guten Tag hop-clop

I’m updating this thing far too much. I just keep having things I’d quite like to remember happen to me. They won’t mean much, but it’s nice to reflect upon the mundane sometimes.

Work was dull yesterday, but was only in from 5-8pm, so wasn’t too bad. Scott was regaling me with tales of when he worked in the kilt hire shop. You never really expect exceptionally odd things to happen in normal places, but he had lots of stories. And people I work with at the bookshop have lots of stories about different characters coming in that intrigue and excite. I’ve not had any crazy experiences yet, but I suppose it’s still early days. I like it when people talk to me though. I had a Finnish woman in a few weeks ago who was telling me all about how she knows nine languages, her ex-husband and her divorced two years ago but are still friends and go on holiday together, her son is an accomplished 37 year old jazz pianist who is relatively well known in Finland. I told her I’d been to Helsinki in 2002 and loved it. She seemed happy as she thinks Helsinki is beautiful, but she prefers Scotland and reckons she was born in the wrong place. It’s odd to think that people who have somewhere like that, so unbelievably… for want of a better word, lovely, as their capital could dream of living somewhere like Aberdeen. I’m less reluctant to admit Aberdeen is a nice place these days. I used to be stubborn and damn every thing about it, but now I can accept that it looks quite nice on a sunny day and that I’d rather be living here than out in the country. Still, I’d rather be somewhere else, somewhere new to explore and get lost in.
Two drifters off to see the world
There’s such a lot of world to see
Which leads me neatly to my next subject… London. Oh, that old chestnut!

Me and Gracie managed to torture ourselves a bit last night by searching for cheap flats to rent in London. Oddly, we found affordable ones that weren’t horrific looking. Some of them were in places like Brixton that would be fantastic to live in. We both have that one main goal of living in the UK’s metropolis and we both share determination to do so, but lack the funds. So, this has allowed us to give ourselves a target of £5000 (I’ve just found out that’s €6324 for Graceface) by… I don’t think we set a date, but in the late night/early morning madness, we’ve realised that having a monetary target is better than nothing. Anyway, THEN we start looking seriously into moving. I think we’re ignoring the big problem of how the hell we get there from Scotland and Ireland, but eff and jeff that! I’d happily only bring a backpack full of clothes with me down on the megabus! It got us excited and lifted me out of a… numb mood. I don’t really know how I’ve been feeling the past few weeks. It only really struck me today when the father came in and said “Alright? You seem a bit down recently…” This is the first time I can recall him ever picking up on something like that. Let alone the first time he’s picked up on something that I didn’t even notice too much, so couldn’t have been giving strong signals of. Does that make sense? I don’t want to read it back because I suspect it doesn’t and then I’ll have to try and think of a better way of phrasing it again.

I’ve just stumbled upon this. Now I’m not going to claim to have a wide knowledge of what goes on property-wise. Some might say I know nothing of the crunch, but I can predict right now frogular Alex Salmond will take credit for it all going swimmingly and people will believe him and keep voting for him. Shitnuts.

I’m going to veer away from that or I’ll only reveal my ignorance of politics (but I knows what I likes). In a few hours, I’m off to go to some viewing of an auction that’s happening tomorrow. I’ve never been to an auction before, but we’re going to go to see if we can pick up anything for my sister. She’s on the lookout for mainly Victorian things to collect.  
This is the actual word-for-word list of things for us to look out for for her and her boyfriend:
Mermaid things
Raven
Crow
Barn Owl
Dagger
Butterflies
Busts
Etchings
Optical things – sciency
Anatomical things
Apothecary things
Freaks
Victorian circus
Theatrical posters
Diving thing
Phrenology
Newspapers
Old magic tricks
Swords
Ships in bottles
Japanese things
Bonsai trees
Limbs
Gauntlets
Silhouettes
Keys – a really big one
Birdcages
Evil monkey on a perch holding an apple (no hat)
Monkey riding on a goat (with hat)
Monkey with cymbals
Victorian albinos (preferably twins)
Memento mori
Theosophist pics
Siamese twins
Lantern slides

I like how specific some of it is. I’d like to get her an owl so she can put it in her room and then quote Snuff Box, “This is my room. I’ve got a stuffed owl and some whisky.”
‘Limbs’ is bewildering. I nearly said to her “We’re not Jack the Ripper…” but this is evident as he only collected innards…
I like the sound of all this stuff anyway. I’m bang into Victorian shizz. I’ve got a big book list written for when I can afford things again. The majority of it consists of obscure music books about Johnny Thunders and the Cure that would have to be ordered, but I’ve realised there’s quite a few books on Jack the Ripper and Victorian executioners and stuff. I was interested in all that capital punishment hoopla but I think Snuff Box has brought out the hangman obsessive in me. They’re interesting fellows. I only really know about Pierrepoint, but there’s a few others that keep cropping up in things I’ve read that sound intriguing. Notably, James Berry. He was one of the well-known ones and he’s referenced in Snuff Box. I don’t know if it is merely coincidence that Matt’s brother in the show is called James or it is attention to detail but knowing Sir Matt of Berry, it’ll be the latter.

Ah, I’ve just stumbled upon this and done an “Aww…” at the sight of those friends I have not seen in many a month. I miss those fools. I haven’t done any shameless promotion for them in ages… So, go here: www.myspace.com/1990sband 
They’s good people.

Right; to auction!

Hush hush, my love!

I feel I may be cheating slightly, or being rather self-indulgent as I’ve just set up this account while already having been committed to the eBall and chain, livejournal for a number of years now. Two blogs, eh? I don’t quite know what to do. I’ll probably update them both with the same thing for a while… But I doubt many people will read this, so it may be made redundant.

Either way, that’s not really important. Why spend life worrying about the trivial when there’s bigger things to think about? Most of my thoughts consist of wondering if and when I can move to London. I’ve truly got London on the brain. That’d be quite a big move though, I feel. ABDN – LDN. Jesus. Any advice on cheap flats to rent would be amazing. This is the part where I’m to be imagined as having a charming smile.

Speaking of charm, I decided the other week to keep a track of all the Witty Banter I’ve engaged in with strangers. “Why the hell?” I hear you cry. It just occurred to me when out with Dame Laura of Barrie that I end up saying cringe-worthingly charming things to strangers in an attempt to fill any awkward silence with chuckles or inanities. So I wrote down a few examples of encounters I’d had that day where I’ve thrown a lame comment into the mix when dealing with shop assistants/waiters/etc. Then I realised that this must be stopped when I started working at the bookshop. The inanity-counter exploded as with each customer, I attempted to engage in crappy chit-chat. Too much to remember, essentially. And it’s usually the same thing “Argh! These machines are a bit temperamental sometimes, the scanner’s definitely got a mind of its own, ho ho!” Please. Kill. Me.
I don’t think people want this. I’ll admit that I secretly quite enjoy waiting for reactions of strangers to stupid polite things I say, just to see if they’ll do the same or look at me with pity. I feel sorry for the customers I put through that, “Please stop talking, I only want to take advantage of this 3 for 2 Richard and Judy’s Summer Reads offer.”
Poor sods.

I got a call yesterday from a number I didn’t recognise, so didn’t answer. (When asked why by Laura, I wasn’t really sure… I just never answer unless I know who it is, which on reflection is a ridiculous way to live, isn’t it?) They left an answerphone message and it turns out it was the other shop offering me a job there. I’m wondering whether or not it would be possible to work at both seeing as I only work two days a week at the one I’m already at… Intriguing prospect. I’ll discuss it with some people then call back tomorrow. Keep ‘em waiting, that is truly the way of the she-bastard.