Tick-Tock Tattoo and a case for wearing glasses

Every two weeks on the Friday, I’ve got the unenviable task of signing-on at my local Job Centre. It’s a place governed by streams of Liberalised red tape and populated with unemployed cretins and employed denizens who have an inability to crack a smile: if you attempt to lighten the mood with a little banter, they’ll glower at you as if you’ve just spat out a hate-filled Bernard Manning joke, regardless of whether you’re just someone trying to earn their next Job Seekers giro or you’re actually an out-of work comedian trying to get a laugh.

Smoking: uttering the dreaded 'S' word!

I used to adore smoking. Not having a joint or anything like that, just smoking normal, tobacco-filled cigarettes. There, I’ve said the ‘S’ word now and I don’t care: if anyone wishes to rain fire and brimstone down upon me because I dare to mention such a social travesty in our health-conscious, non-culture of the 21st century ‘Tweenies’, then feel free to cast your misjudged, self-righteous indignation my way, for I can take it! I’m neither embarrassed about nor regretful for the many years my body suffered at the hands of nicotine, tar and the many assorted chemical ills within each cigarette I interned.

Bad letter day…

My Postman is as blind as a f**king Bat and although his misreading of envelope addresses has never caused me a direct problem in seven years, last week this Elysium all changed and the effect has been affective, to say the least. It all started when I became aware I hadn’t received any mail through my letterbox for nearly a week and yet, I knew my quarterly bills should have arrived and added to my current money woes. Now, whether it’s my latest six-page BT bill full of hidden charges or it happens to be British Gas’ reams of electrical extortion matters not one iota: the simple fact is my personal expenditure is processed and sent out to me on paper, in order for moi to settle the debts as these monopolising conglomerates expect their pound(s) of flesh, regardless of excuses.

Subconsciously counting backwards

It’s a while since I last wrote about one of my dreams - see "Dreams of what lie beneath" for more details - and so by chance, I just happened to have had a very vivid and quite disturbing dream last night. This subconscious rumination’s origin seems to have been a letter I received in the morning post the day before, but which I’d put off reading for 24 hours due to the potential implications laid out within its organised font. I will forsake exploring what was in the letter until after I’ve explained the slumbered intricacies that I can recall for this blog entry, but feel free to guess as you read along from the imagery, metaphors and subtexts used in this story...

BT to TalkTalk and back again... pt 2

It had only taken 40 minutes before the reassuring sound of an actual female human voice - albeit one with an Indian subcontinent twang to it - reverberated in the handset I was holding. During this time, I’d avoided the judgemental gaze of people wandering past my stationary phone-box stance and had grown increasingly furious with each passing nanosecond I had to endure the swirling blasts of icy air from the gap at the base of the box.

‘Hello, may I help you, Sir?’ was uttered once again due to my belated response.

BT to TalkTalk and back again... pt 1

Over the last year or two, I have written a couple of times on this blog of my absolute hatred and utter contempt for BT Broadband - see "BT Broadband: welcome to the dribbling trickle" and also "BT Infinity: promises, promises..." for more details - and I have felt no need to rescind my original anger towards this shower-of-shit company in recent times. My boiling rage usually entails a rambling discourse from me in a thousand words or so regarding British Telecom’s inability to garner my abode with a decent internet connection in the year 2011. As a result, I have equated their RG45 cabling along my skirting boards to string, with their wireless Home Hub version 2.0 and my local telephone exchange as the two tin cans on the end of said string: basically, I’ve dreamt of tortuous and bloody assassinations due to dropped packets, a continually rebooted modem and a download speed circa 1998...

The last lettuce in the shop...

Just the other day whilst out and about, I thought I’d pop into a local supermarket to pick up a few essentials, so in I went, scooping up a basket from the double-door entrance as I strode inside. Almost immediately, I came to the refrigerated vegetable section and realising I was short of a decent lettuce, I started to search around in the four-tiered, shelved greenery: I found pre-packed Rocket leaves, tossed salads, loose Spinach and watercress’ of various shapes and sizes but no lettuces - iceberg, curly, Gem or round - were anywhere to be seen.

Between a rock and an unemployed hard place

It’s official: I’ve been unemployed for the last three weeks and so far, things are looking very bleak indeed on the job front, as most people will realise in the current economic climate of the UK. So I’ve had to endure the whole new claim for Job Seekers benefit debacle that one must undergo when tossed onto the heap of uselessness, which is much like a dumped dog that its owners don’t want any part of anymore, hanging around for scraps. Yes, that’s my role now in society: I’m a shit-heel mutt, scurrying about for handouts, losing its hair through stress and feeling outside normality...

Script writing means no blogging!

Well, I appear to have had a two week hiatus from writing utter dross for this blog and all because I’ve been typing more and more of my nonsensical slop into an half an hour TV script in the fingers-crossed hope of breaking out of my monotonous, poverty-stricken, soon-to-be-unemployed existence. I’d originally written the synopsis and ten pages this time last year, but what with life and its tendency to fling handfuls of cooling shit upon me, I’d never found the time to progress beyond the basic outline, until now.

Gruel and rhubarb? Yes please!

During a trip to my local Post Office the other day, as I queued laden with parcels in a never-decreasing line of coughing, sniffling and diseased people, I happened to overhear just in front of me two blokes speaking in hushed tones. The bloke speaking the most was in his fifties but was powerfully built and had sore-looking cuts and scrapes across his face and bald head; the other bloke was in his thirties and was listening intently, albeit with an increasingly astonished look adorning his face as the older bloke’s tale progressed. With a long wait ahead of me, I popped out one of my MP3 earplugs and covertly eavesdropped on their conversation in order to kill the boredom.