Monday 27 September 2010

The Drip

Ask any scientist and they’ll tell you that it’s a fact that the most restful night’s sleep you can have is a dribble sleep. Some scientists are so enthusiastic you won’t even have to ask, they’ll come and tell you. There really is no better feeling than waking up with a gooey cheek and a pool of cold mucus on your pillow. Nobody has ever been able to fully explain why it’s so satisfying to regain consciousness bathing in your own spit but it is.

I have much more time to enjoy a good bit of dribble these days. With my friends back at university and the boredom of unemployment setting in I have started to appreciate the smaller things, dribble is just one of them. Another is my new Blackberry. It has taken four years for me to get a phone that allows me to look down on people and now that I have one I couldn’t be happier. When I see fellow blackberry owners I feel the need to high-five them and boisterously shout “Blackberries!” Then I suggest we exchange bbm pins, that way, we can instant message one another all the way around the world. FOR FREE.

At first I really wanted an i-phone, but then I found out that I couldn’t afford one and swiftly realised that I’d wanted a blackberry all along. “I-phones are for wankers and posers anyway,” I reassured myself, much in the same way middle-aged men have to convince themselves Vauxhall’s are better than Jaguars.

I recently visited my friend in Bournmouth. We ate pizza, drove recklessly, smoked and drank vodka, pretty much the usual non-stop parent’s nightmare that is a twenty-something’s weekend. One thing that will stand out from the trip was our visit to ‘V’. Now V was once a church, but for some reason, it is now a club. To me, building a club in a church is like setting up a chocolate fountain in a gym. The two ideas are oppositional. I’m not at all religious, but there’s something a bit depressing about seeing a bouncers toss smashed chavs from a church, or semi naked ladies sprawling themselves over sofas that were once pews.

Who am I kidding?! It was great fun and to be honest, there isn’t that much difference between churches and clubs anyway. Look at bouncers and priests for example. I mean they’re almost identical. Both wear black, both are grumpy, boring and often bald. I hope that doesn’t mean that I’m going to hell. Gulp

Thursday 23 September 2010

Pampers

So I strutted over to the office yesterday morning with a grin on my face and an NHS badge swinging around in my pocket like a giant health care cock. I reached into my trousers, grabbed the badge and raised it to the little plastic panel by the entrance. There was a professionally discreet ‘bleep’, the little light changed from orange to green and the metal bolt snapped back into the door. “AHHHHH” it was like a self important firework display. “I can get into this building but none of the peasants can, Ha.” I thought to myself as the door swung open and I ascended a flight of stairs. Greeting several middle-aged men in suits, I continued down a corridor. What’s this? Another door; another plastic panel beside it! I got the badge out of my pocket again, surly my badge wouldn’t open two security locked doors?


This time; goose bumps of narcissism as I raised the badge. The same tell tale bleep and light show. “I’m James Bond,” I reflected aloud as I continued towards my desk.


“If the peasants get through the first door, they haven’t got a chance of getting past this one. I’m going to have to let them in.” What power I had.


That's how every morning in the NHS started.


I sat down at my desk with a cup of awesome work tea, content that I was a shoo-in to get the job I had worked so hard for. After all only idiots wouldn’t give it to me, right?

Well it turns out that all employers continue to be idiots, because I didn’t get the job.

Getting told you will remain unemployed by your boss is a lot like getting wacked in the Sopranos. You’re innocently tapping away at your keyboard one day, minding your own business while all but one of your colleagues leaves the room. Then; before you even have time to call them a cocksucker, bang, there’s blood splatter all over the computer screen and your head flops lifeless into a plate of office cake.


“Moist, there’s no easy way to say this...” After that I ignored everything she said. I spent the next hour printing out posters and waved goodbye to my successful life as James Bond of the public sector and got the bus home.


I sit before you, dependant, unable to drive, unemployed, unloved and penniless or DUUUP for short. Just like every other twenty-one year old graduate then. (Well apart for the driving... everyone can drive, they’re all just DUUP.)


I feel I should mention that on Sunday I got so colossally drunk that I danced around with an inflatable guitar and became incredibly aggressive in front of everyone I know. It was like Scott Pilgrim meets Scarface. Disgraceful.



If you would like to know how to achieve something similar with an evening here is the recipe for a Moscow Mule. They really are very delicious




· A few drops of Angostura Bitters


· Two measures of Vodka




· One measure of lime juice




· Toped up with ginger beer...




A few of those and you'll be a right wanker. It's worth mentioning that the morning after drinking a rather a lot of these I went into work at a hospital. It may be why I didnt get the job.

Sunday 19 September 2010

Four Parties and an Interview

The last few weeks have presented more plot twists than an average episode of Jonathan Creek. Intrigue, suspense, love, lust, triumph and disaster, we’ve had the lot. I have found time to write this blog in what can only be described as the last ad break; after which, we will all find out who murdered who and whether the killer is going to chuck themselves off a cliff, (That’s what usually happens).

So what’s been happening?

Well, your ever so handsome and humble narrator has been working (unpaid) in an office for eight weeks trying to secure himself a well paid job. A job that would not only offer financial security but also a break from the inevitable boredom of watching all of his friends piss off back to uni. It would also provide him with enough money to continue his driving odyssey and in due course, get himself.... HIS OWN PLACE.

Working in an office is really very bad for you. Since starting I have developed a fetish for canteen food, in particular, trifle. Each lunch time I scuttle down to the food hall and grab myself a BLT sandwich, a pot of pineapple and a strawberry trifle. Often, the trifle is so appealing that I eat it first. This makes the first few mouthfuls of BLT taste weird but it’s completely worth it. I should add that this food is often in addition to a school boy style packed lunch. If I continue in the same vein I’ll be obese in a month. If the overeating wasn’t enough I’ve also suffered from some pretty serious sleep deprivation. Not wanting to miss out on the fun of the summer holidays, I have made little to no consideration for the working week when planning my sleeping pattern, often awaking with my ears buzzing and spending entire days downing tea to stop my eyes sealing themselves shut.

The last and most serious of my health concerns comes in the form of a growing fondness for cigarettes. At first I had the odd one to fit in. Then I wanted to stop stealing other people’s so I bought a pack or two. Then I decided I often wanted to look cool while walking around on my own. I mean it’s not like I’m addicted or anything bad like that, it’s just..... Sometimes I fancy one, all the time. I regularly wake up with a smoky mouth.

So I spent eight weeks stuffing envelopes, laminating, writing about middle aged women and abusing my body in preparation for the interview I had last Thursday. I wasn’t nervous about the interview but I was really fucking stressy. When occasionally stopping to look at myself in the mirror (at least 10 times a day) in the preceding week I didn’t recognise the zombie staring back at me.

The interview itself went fine, but there were 300 applicants so I’m not holding my breath. In truth I am holding my breath. I spent eight weeks working there which left me black lunged and penniless. If they don’t give me the job it might be me Jonathan Creek comes after when he finds an NHS director with their head twated in with a laminator. I can just imagine Alan Davies crouched over the body.

“Look! The murderer has given him paper cuts all over his body..... That’s funny, no blood. These wounds were inflicted after he died! What sick bastard did this?!”

Me. I did it! He didn’t give me a job.
Anyway, enough of that, for now at least, I find out in the next day or two.

Tuesday 3 August 2010

Safety Information

Due to some incredible advances in technology and my total automotive incompetence I’m blogging to you from a train. People have been using computers on trains for twenty years or so, but I’m a technotard so this is all a bit of a novelty. The whole experience is making me feel like one of those executive bankers who claim a six figure bonus each year. I’ve started feeling that wankerish urge to wear shirts with the wrong colour collar and spend thousands of pounds on a bottle of wine, then let everyone know exactly how much it cost.

You’ll probably be reading this long after I arrive in sunny Cornwall, not just because you’re too cool to check my blog but also because I can’t get to grips with the fucking train wireless internet. This unfortunate mechanical hitch means that today’s entry will be Old-Person-Fact-less. I know, I know, I completely understand if you want to stop reading but it’s not my fault, it’s this god awful word processor of mine. Despite receiving a new hard drive and some super protective internet condom software to fend off the computer syphilis it caught a few months ago the Toshiba remains a dusty, overheating dog of a laptop. No wonder I struggle with computers when my own laptop is even more technotarded than I am. Everyone else has those snazzy Mac books, Wankers. They’re meant to be useful for all sorts of design and image manipulation but I have my doubts. I mean they cost over a grand! If you need to change a photograph that much your obviously not a very good photographer. Stupid, over-priced pieces of poser crap. God, I really want one.

After spending a load of time/money in cities you really appreciate the ability to take a deep breath without filling your lungs with warm engine heated air. When you breathe in Cornwall it feels like taking in the oxygen of at least 8 London breaths. The feeling is similar to the one you get after chewing that eucalyptus gum (Airwaves?!). It almost hurts your insides to take in so much clean oxygen. If you live in London you might as well just start smoking twenty a day; it won’t do you more harm than a daily trip on the tube (NOT MEDICAL ADVICE).

The healthy feeling you get in the West Country is actually alarmingly deceptive. Those rosy cheeks you see in holiday snaps are in fact pockets of blood trapped in your face after the clotted cream tea clogs your arteries. I find it really quite amazing that anyone born beyond Bristol is able to get out of bed in the morning. There are so many delicious Cornish and Devonshire delicacies with the ability to leave a consumer incapacitated for up to twelve hours.
Here is a short list.....

Scones
Clotted Cream
Pasties

......I did say it was a short list. OK maybe there isn’t a wide range, but what there is, is amazing. In the five nights I spend in St Erth I aim to put on at least four and a half stone.

Oh yeah they do cheese as well.

Sunday 1 August 2010

Sand and Sleepers

With graduation done and dusted adult life has truly begun. So far I have ascertained that it’s a tiring old business. I’ve started working full time in a hospital, except that I’m not sure it really counts as working because I don’t get paid. With no income from my job I have been forced to continue my money grubbing benefit claim. The whole situation leaves me in the peculiar position of working for free and being paid to do nothing.

The NHS is good fun. I have been tasked with a number of duties, some are engaging and educational, some are just shit. Part of my job is to go around the wards picking up interesting stories about healthcare, which is kinda cool. Roaming the corridors in search of a scoop makes me feel like Dustin Hoffman in All The Presidents Men (which, if you haven’t seen, you should) or Louis Theroux on a Weird Weekend. However for every hour or so of bad ass independent investigation I get to do, I can expect to spend three hours laminating; swings and roundabouts I suppose.

When it’s your job to barge into wards, invade people’s privacy and ask sick patients or pissed of staff irritating questions you soon get an eye for approaching the right people. In general, I have proved popular with rosy cheeked middle aged/ elderly women and so direct any irksome enquiries their way. On the other hand, sweaty, stressed out working class men seem to have less time for the middle class pipsqueak routine.

Another amazing thing about hospitals is the incredible number of old people found within. If you ever wondered what happens to people after their seventieth birthday then just look in a hospital, either that or Sainsburys on Saturday morning. It turns out that old people tend to be the perfect interviewees, friendly, bored and often captive, they always provide an in depth analysis of hospital life. This ranges from the colour of the walls to why they dislike vegetables. It made me feel bad that I’ve never normally given a shit about what elderly folks say and so from now on I aim to include an “Old Person Fact” in my blog whenever I get the opportunity.

Old Person Fact 1, Old people are among the happiest in China.

Wednesday 28 July 2010

Durex Duluxe

I think it is safe to say that Durex Deluxe condoms are the rubbers Alan Sugar would use if he got sick of his wife and wanted to pound some floozy in a casino toilet. The Deluxe is marketed as the Rolls-Royce of protection and it’s hard to argue with that description. Durex have obviously put in the extra man hours to make their new classier contraception stand out from the crowd. Every aspect of design seems to have been treated with a bit more care than your bog standard, behind-the-bike-shed Johnny. A curved cream box and silver lettering add a touch of sophistication, while the individual contact lens-esque containers made me feel like James Bond using an awesome new sex gadget. But is it worth the extra cash?

As I hurriedly peeled back the layer of protective wrapping I was struck by how much care had been put into each condom. A super thin disc of latex rests in its own little, space-age pod. Then I realised I had an erection and stopped caring. That’s the fundamental problem with high end condoms; when you’re faced with a expectant girl, lying on her back and spreading her legs for you, neither of you give a shit about the packaging. Also I didn’t quite understand why Durex had made the special effort of ensuring the Deluxe is “crystal clear.” It’s an impressive feat of engineering and all, but at the end of the day, a dick covered in plastic is a dick covered in plastic. You’re still going to look pretty stupid whether it’s transparent or bright green... Well I do anyway. If that’s what the extra pennies went on then I wouldn’t have bothered. Luckily there is more to the Deluxe than a crystal clear view of my penis.

It’s always worth considering that the best condom is the one you can’t feel. Unsurprisingly having your knob in a balloon can somewhat distract from the romance of sexual intercourse and so, with its price already thrown into question, all the fanciness of the Deluxe would count for nothing if it felt like you’d shoved your bell end into a rubber glove. Thankfully, for men the world over, it doesn’t. The Deluxe is super thin and almost feels as though you’re not wearing anything at all, which as far as I’m concerned is ideal.What I especially liked about the Deluxe is its simplicity. It doesn’t offer any of the gimmicky rubbish that some brands get carried away with. Tingling lubricants, lumps and bumps are all well and good in moderation but sometimes there’s so much going on that sex becomes less about your partner and more about humping a lumpy sack of lube. What the Deluxe offers is something far better. You can actually feel yourself inside whoever you’re sleeping with. It allows you to forget about protection and just enjoy having sex.

The Deluxe is undoubtedly the best condom I’ve used, but at two quid a shag, it’s expensive. If I was rich I would stock up. However, if like me, you aren’t Baron Sugar then you’ll have to weigh up whether it’s worth the extra cash or not. It’s definitely worth trying.

Saturday 17 July 2010

The Deep End

Having now visited the job centre on several occasions the novelty of ‘the dole’ has faded. If standing in the same cue as withered, emphysema ridden, old men, waiting for hand outs doesn’t encourage you to make something of yourself then I’m not sure anything will. Why all unemployed people seem to spend their time hacking up their lungs remains a mystery but I’ve developed a cough already.

I feel a fresh ambition to become rich and successful. Then I can afford to buy the next series of The Wire on DVD or, depending on salary, blu ray. It seems that in this difficult financial climate work can be very hard to come by and so as a result the old CV needs a bit of beefing up. I have been volunteering to do fundraising for charities and such, but am consistently struck by pangs of guilt over the selfish nature of my efforts. As a fairly cynical person I would hate to put myself in that same bracket as Bono and Bob Geldolf who, despite being incredibly charitable with their time and money undermine any good will I have for them with their self-righteous, smug git facial expression and overly sincere visits to poor African villages. It’s as though they feel they have the insight and right to insist that normal people give their money away.

“Give us your fucking money!”

No thanks Bob, I’m not as rich as you and I want to spend the little money I earn (have given to me by the government) on stupid things like Crunch Corners and Tesco’s Chicken Wraps.
So I feel a moral obligation to leave any charitably activities I undertake off my CV. That way I’m not directly benefiting from something that I ought to do for good will. Then again I really want an HD telly and a Ferrari; so I should probably just shut up, accept Bono is a better person than I am and say that I’ve raised four million pounds for cancer research on my CV. It does seem a little hypocritical of me to criticise, whilst living off Job Seekers Allowance....

Anyway, Last night was grad ball, which is probably where today’s bitterness stems from. I am, as usual, hanging. A hangover has the power to surgically remove your optimism gland and leave you an angry lobotomised bastard. Today I’m that bastard. It would just be a repeat of several of my earlier entries to describe the events of last night so I’ll leave you to imagine, but you can safely assume that a large amount of time was spent wildly chanting football songs and cueing for drinks. The ball made leaving seem university much more real than it had been previously. Amid the numerous domestics and sickages I took time to soak up the atmosphere one last time, before passing out on a wooden floor.

Inevitably I woke up with a stiff neck and speaking of stiff; (I’m sorry, couldn’t resist) I have recently been given the opportunity to review a new range of condoms. Shockingly there’s a shortage of sexually active heterosexual men who keep online diaries about their feelings and so I have been given the task of fucking my way through 5 packets of Durex... result! It is now my, awesome sex mission to woo a lady and fill her with so many different types of latex that she develops an allergy. Rather optimistically, the friend who gave me this opportunity included several XL rubbers in her parcel. I fear that may be like slipping a cocktail sausage in a sock.

PS. Sorry Potty Mouth....... “You have to forgive me!!!”