...ruffles...

We’re a Will and Grace type household. I don’t mean Emma’s a firebrand redhead and I’m a gay guy, except; Emma is a firebrand redhead of course. Specifically, we’re Jack and Karen people, I don’t mean Emma’s a feisty lady with an acidic tongue and I’m a gay guy. Except Emma is a feisty lady with an acidic tongue… Ooh ducky…

Anyway, Fraiser, Friends, Will and Grace, (I should, given my age and social status, add Sienfeld, except I’ve never really seen it) – I like quality American comedies.

In Vegas we got an insight into how Americans make their TV. Deep inside the MGM Grand Sara spotted a small booth with a couple of men in it. The sign outside invited people to ‘sign up’. I went and bought a cool CBS Sports T-shirt, Sara asked what it was they wanted people to sign up for.

It turns out it was they were testing pilot TV shows and were looking for people to give them feedback. Hoping to see the first episode of “My Mom’s Made of Mince” or “Our Neighbours, The Elks” we put our names down.

It turns out we were to watch Mystery Girl (which has worrying amounts of coverage throughout the web), this is a cross between Sex and the City, and Ally McBeal – a quirky former It Girl becomes a writer for a fashion magazine and subsequently uses her It Girl training (an in-depth understanding of fashion labels) to solve crimes. Oh, and she makes friends with her agoraphobic shoe making neighbour.

Yes, really.

In the final scene after she’d solved the murder, and got her front page story Mystery Girl’s impressed boss turned to her and smouldered “But can you do it again?” to which she turned to camera and said “As long as celebrities keep behaving badly.” Before putting her pencil in her mouth seductively.

It was as bad as it sounds; throughout the show we had keypads on which there was a dial and a display. The default display read ‘50’, if we were enjoying the programme we were expected to turn the dial up (Maximum 100), if we were getting bored, we turned it down (to 0). Every second of our enjoyment, or otherwise, was being captured.

By the end of the half hour my dial read ‘6’, Emma’s read ‘4’, Christ, even my TV obsessed younger sister would have only marked it around a 78.

What struck me about the process was what this did to the programme making. Whenever something visually interesting happened I automatically turned the dial up, any extended dialog, I turned it down. As Homer might say; ‘BOOOORING’.

Assuming I’m reasonably representative of the average viewer (apart from not being American, obviously), what this means is according to their research, there should be more visual impact and less blah. Which, of course, would mean something like The Office wouldn’t get out of the starting blocks. It means that TV will only be made if there’s plenty of bang in the buck. Stories, dialog and interplay are simply not commercially viable. The hollowed out characters in Mystery Girl were testament to this.

I understand that Corporate America needs to reduce the risks that creativity offers but we’re all going to end up pretty numb if we continue to follow this path – all we’ll get is a procession of Benny Hill type shows. All the while there is less and less chance another Office, or Monty Python, or Vic and Bob, or Little Britain, or League of Gentlemen reaching our screens.

God bless the BBC, that’s what I say.

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Labels: TV and radio

The Rough Guide gives you some very simple instructions about Las Vegas; if you want to go and look for the hidden city, the one the guide books don’t tell you about that the locals frequent. Don’t bother, it doesn’t exist.

It’s a refreshingly honest place. Turn up, spend money, have fun, go home. We are not here to enrich your soul or enlighten your being. We are bigger and stupider than anywhere in the world.

On average each of the 29 million visitors to Vegas loses $688 gambling. Each slot machine makes on average $250 profit a day, and each table $2500. The hotels are vast complexes which are pumped full of pure oxygen to keep gamblers awake, there are no exit signs or clocks, and drinks are served free to keep the punters’ gambling creative. Wadda place.

I’ll get round to all the various things we did and saw in good time, but in short…

Stayed at the Luxor, shopped at Caesars Palace, took part in some viewer research for an appalling comedy drama pilot show on UPN, went on the rollercoasters on top of the Stratosphere and New York New York, ate at the Bellagio Buffet, gambled a little, saw the Bellagio fountains visited Elvis-a-rama and saw an Elvis impersonator, ate a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, saw Lance Burton’s magic show, the MGM Lions and Siegfried and Roy’s Tigers, had taxi rides with one driver who wanted to assassinate the president, and one who thought it was funny to hoot his horn at an old woman crossing the road in an electric wheel chair. Took advantage of the outrageously good exchange rate and bought a stack of CD’s and trainers, saw the gondolas on the second floor of the Venetian, had burgers in the Mandalay Bay resort, but not the Rossini burgers, the one with truffles and fois gras, because they were $60…

But we didn’t get married much to the chagrin of everyone who called, emailed and texted within hours of us getting home. Sorry.

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Labels: Holiday

When I went to bed last night I managed to concoct a theory to do with eggs, potatoes and my current situation. Something about there being a basic human need to trade. If I have a potato and he has an egg, but I want egg and he wants a potato, we trade. That’s it. And if that were the only reason for working, to trade to satisfy a basic human need, everyone would be traders and most jobs would be redundant.

Politics, accumulation, and power are the real reasons people in the modern world work. Satisfying the basic human need is actually a tiny proportion of anyone’s spending. Therefore the angst that has resulted from the political shenanigans that have been going on is what I’m really being paid to suffer.

Just to clarify, I haven’t been sacked, or anything like that. Materially nothing has changed; I still do the same job for the same salary. It’s just according to these job ads my salary, which on Thursday was a good one for the company, now equates to a relatively junior role. Which doesn’t change my material well being, just dents my ego. Which is all rather meaningless in the great scheme of things. I’m sorry to bore you with it.

Right, that’s that. We’re off to Vegas on Sunday for a week in the stupidest town on the planet. I’ll see you all when I get back.

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Labels: General me

Yesterday I earned a good salary in a challenging, stressful but enjoyable job. Today I don’t. The job section of our local paper is advertising four jobs at our place. One of the four is a ‘Head of’, just like me. The job reports to the big boss man, like me. It requires an MBA or equivalent, like me. It offers a salary 30% higher than mine.

What does this mean? Am I being screwed? Am I on my way out? I have no beef about people earning more than me, but salaries quantify your worth to the company. I thought I was part of the solution, a new wave of creative and dynamic individuals hired to turn the company around. Now what? I’m part of the problem? Is a new new wave coming in to solve the problems created by the old guard? Even when this particular member of the old guard has only been in place a year and has never been told they’re going in the wrong direction?

The whole thing smacks of gross incompetence, a common theme at our place, people who earn good money and live good lives making isolated decisions without any consideration for the wider picture. I doubt anyone has even considered what the 30% differentiation communicates to the interested world. Good money does not equal good people.

But why should other people be allowed to make you feel like this? I don’t need more insecurities, I struggle with the concept that my friends hang around with me because they like who I am and not because of Emma or Spankee or a circumstance they’ve found themselves in, I don’t need people to make thoughtless and arbitrary decisions about my worth and value. The calculation is too hard for me as it is.

So what now? I’ll challenge the logic, I’ll apply for the jobs (I’m more than qualified), I’ll make their lives as uncomfortable as possible. And then what? Well, they may tell me to fuck off because they do think I’m an incompetent prick. So in the interim? Beer, flying out to Vegas on Sunday and listening to Public Enemy.

Fuck em all.

Wrong time to blog, I know.

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Labels: Work

To suggest Championship Manager is a popular football management simulation game is like saying your fingers are the frilly things that make your hands look pretty.

The current 4th edition is exquisitely detailed, so much so that there’s a story that Leeds United once tried to buy a fictional Championship Manager player that had been planted deep inside the game.

Personally, I favour Championship Manager 2; partly because the gameplay is less comprehensive so processing power can be handed over to the Angolan 4th Division as well as La Liga. Mostly it’s because years ago I went from managing Oxford in the 2nd division to the European Cup Final with Everton. The game took place in front of my dad’s Amiga at four in the morning, and as we figuratively lifted the trophy I realised my parents were probably upstairs fretting as to why I hadn’t spent my teens experimented with recreation drugs.

In the real world, Jamie Brooks is a prodigiously talented Oxford United striker who two days before a trial with Arsenal was struck down with a debilitating illness called Guillain Barre Syndrome. It nearly cost him his life, and may yet cost him his professional football career.

I’m currently playing Championship Manager 4, and as usual I’m managing Oxford. I’ve let my heart rule my head and let Brooksey rehabilitate on my weighty wage bill. He’s been permanently injured for two seasons, commanding a status of ‘Out for several months with a viral infection’.

During a mammoth session on Sunday a message popped up to say that Brooks was finally available again, apparently (and this is genuinely what it said)…

“Jamie Brooks has resumed full training after his bollock fell off.”

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Labels: Football

There’s something hypnotic about hitting your fridge with a hammer. However rather like dabbling in crack cocaine you really don’t know you’ve gone too far until it’s too late.

I don’t mean thumping a hole in the door to reach the cheese, I mean hacking away the build up of ice. We have huge icebergs packing every crevice and corner of the fridge, our claw hammer lies wantonly on the floor. Pasties and Chicken Kievs whimper quietly deep in the depths of the cold wasteland. I must retrieve them, this I must. I haven’t gone through the filament yet, but I will. Oh yes. I will.

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Labels: General me

We've all done it haven't we? Those cripplingly embarrassing moments which come back to haunt you from time to time. For me, it was accidentally buying my Grandma a three pack of tanga briefs for Christmas. Even now I can't pass a Marks and Spencer without maniacally swatting imaginary flies from around my head.

Poor old Justin, he's 'accidentally' exposed a Janet Jackson booby (or as it's called in Thoroughly Modern Milly - 'a front') during the Superbowl half time show. How lucky she taped what appears to be a small cog from a dishwasher onto her nipple beforehand. How strange that the costume, which looks like it would otherwise withstand a nuclear assault had a weakness around the right cup area. What tough luck, normally when he tries to undue a woman's bra he's all fingers and thumbs.

Whether this was a carefully staged part of the show or not, it doesn't surprise me that the Superbowl needed a bit of spicing up. American Football is the most cripplingly boring game you can hope to watch. Especially as its sold as a sport hell bent on excitement, power and aggression, or at least that's what all the adverts with rambo-esque musical montages of NFL heroes screaming "Let's hurt them bad" would have you believe.

I understand the game - you have six goes (or downs) to move the ball ten yards, if you move it ten yards you get another six goes. If you don't move it ten yards the other team gets the ball. The objective is to move down the field and into the End Zone for a touchdown, worth something like 5 points. It's played in four quarters of fifteen minutes - one hour in total.

I watched a Superbowl final once. During the eighties Channel 4 was more than the visual Guardian it's now become. They used to cover obscure sports like Sumo and Kabbadi, their NFL coverage in particular was exciting and new. 'My team' the San Francisco 49ers reached the final and my A Level timetable meant that I couldn't watch the Sunday night coverage and sleep a little later and get in for Sociology or some such on Monday morning. It was mind crushingly dull, for three hours large men shoved each other and the ball moved inch by inch in one direction, then inch by inch in another direction. In between were endless adverts, or Channel 4 would cut back to the studio where Englishmen with feint American accents would talk about offence and dee-fence.

The half time extravaganza was lavish and expensive, but the sound was ropey and the singers clearly miming, not something that matters when your in Row 4,768 of Candlestick Park. The game ended with a last second touchdown, except in American sport, the last 30 seconds can last up to twenty minutes. It was, apparently, the most exciting Superbowl ever.

Last night I watched the build up, diddy Dermot O'Leary (an NFL fan, apparently) sat next to a monster with a jerry curl afro and nodded along to useful insights like "It's the team with the best team spirit that will win". I watched an hour, which allowed me to see the captain's toss the coin for kick-off (only America can have 6 captains on each side), I also got to see the first twenty seconds of the game. Then I went to bed. Bored.

I woke up this morning to read that New England Patriots had won in a 'thriller' but I now know that it was probably anything but. Anyone who did endure the whole thing would have been thanking god for the right nork of a troubled musical dynasty's favourite daughter.

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Labels: Music

It just doesn't snow like it used to. In the old days you'd get four feet of snow overnight and in the morning you'd wake up to it being bright and sunny. You'd get your wellies on and jump into the nearest snow drift, stand in it up to your neck for hours and not feel the cold at all.

Now snow is grey and slushy and icey, and you get stuck in your car for hours. It took me two hours to drive the half hour journey home on Wednesday night. My dad managed four and a half hours to do the 17 miles from High Wycombe to Thame.

My mum phoned us, clearly worried, at about 8.30. I knew she was worried, because she said "I'm not worried". She was pretty justified, Dad's somewhat demob happy as he careers towards the end of his career on into blissful retirement. He's usually at home by 4.30. His non-appearance was a bit out of character, to exacerbate things further, he didn't have his mobile phone.

Eventually, having trailed a host of websites trying to ascertain something more than 'all roads are hazardous and should be avoided' he appeared. Mum phoned to say he was back and put him on to tell the whole saga.

It had taken an hour to get out of the car park, he said. The traction control and ABS on the Mini is a winner, he said. The conditions were so bad, when he got to Sainsbury's to buy some cigars, the door froze up, he said.

The fact that a pack of cigars took priority over everything else (including my aged mother) didn't seem to strike him as in any way odd.

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Labels: General me

For no good reason yesterday I briefly watched a programme on CBBC called Crush. The show's presenter went to a school, picked out one of the children, David, and revealed to his class the name of the girl he fancied, Katie. David was then challenged take part in a gameshow where the prize was a date with Katie to Disneyland Paris.

OK, bypassing the fact that this is a hideous concept for a children's gameshow, the first round was called 'Getting to know you'. David and Katie went into a booth for three minutes. David had to think up a string of questions to ask Katie. He would then have to use the information he gleaned in the three minutes to answer some questions on Katie's favourite things (Lee from Blue and Ponies, obviously).

David followed up "What's your favourite school?" with "What's your favourite fish?". Oh well, Katie was a bit of a munter.

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Labels: TV and radio

According to Sara, The Last Samurai (or Last of the Summer Wine as it's hilariously known in our house) has Oscar buzz.

The film takes you to back to Japan (not China as stated in earlier editions) about 150 years ago. It's a country in flux; battling the implications of a modernisation programme. Japan's ancient social structures and traditions are being dismantled by a few greedy bureaucrats who see riches in an arms deal with the US. Agreeing to buy the modern weaponry not only secures a trade agreement but supplies the westernised bureaucrats with an arsenal powerful enough to destroy the arcane Samurai that stand in their way. US vets are brought in to train a ramshackle army of Japanese conscripts. Japan gets rich, destroying the samurai and losing its identity in the process. It's all very zeitgeisty, an imperialist regime imposes an ideology at odds with the natural law of a society, only to suffer a cataclysmic cultural kick back. Or something to that effect.

Sounds good doesn't it? Lavish sets, historical context, intricate plotlines; it's got Oscar buzz written all over it.

And then there's Tom Cruise, the westerner thrust into the lost culture, battling the language barrier, struggling to understand the customs played out around him. Is he the silent observer whose battles the contradictions in his head? Nah, he's the most powerful actor in Hollywood, no such understatement here, after all nobody says no to Tom Cruise.

• Nobody says no to the fact he has to become a samurai
• Nobody says no to the fact he's the last samurai
• Nobody says no to the fact he has to be the best samurai there ever was
• Nobody bothers to explain whether an attack by a gang of ninjas is a government backed assassination attempt on the village's powerful leader (BORING!) or a vehicle for Cruise to get cool with a sword.
• Nobody says no to Cruise bucking a thousand years of tradition by turning Japan's Emperor from a distant and impassive demi-god into a compassionate humanist by the power of one well constructed monologue
• Nobody says no to Cruiso endlessly winning mock training fights with other samurai whilst ignoring the sub plot of rampant westernisation happening in Yokahama
• Nobody says no to Cruise falling in love with the only young woman in the village
• Nobody says no to her falling in love with him despite the fact he killed her husband
• Nobody says no to Cruise turning her from the brink of suicide to unstinting love by saying he was 'sorry'
• Nobody says no to Cruise standing with a horse in the middle of a mountain range as the film closes
Nobody, presumably, will say no to him getting an Oscar for this pile of self indulgent shite. The nob.

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Labels: Films

It may surpise you to hear that the picture on the left is not a close up of a skip outside the back of a hairdressers shop. It is, in fact, darts player Andy 'The Viking' Fordham. The woman on the right is UK Pop Idol 2003 winner Michelle McManus. Both had a good day last Sunday. They hit professional highs with Fordham winning the BDO World Darts Championship and McManus clocking her first UK number one.


Unless you were beginning to think my new site accommodated for the blind by automatically switching your browser to a magnified setting it won't have escaped you're attention that these people are larger than your average celebrity.

Being fat affects these two in different ways. For Fordham, it's a huge positive. Firstly, he's supposed to be like this and secondly he's more like this than anyone else in the darting fraternity. He weighs 30 stone and wears a couple of hundredweight of cheap jewellery on his non-throwing arm as a counterbalance. He's the quintessentially stereotyped darts player, which is much easier for the general public to comprehend.

McManus, on the other hand, is a square peg in a round hole and is not so fortunate. It's not that big people can't be successful singers, ask Aretha Franklin, Meatloaf, Luciano Pavarotti, Alison Moyet and Chubby Checker, it's just it's better that pop stars are thin. Let me explain.



The music industry needs a high volume of hits to generate a steady income. The rare and unpredictable commodity of talent doesn't come in an even flow, nor is it available in high enough volumes to pay the bills. Mute records boss, Daniel Miller, recognises that he'll shed a heap of money on Luke Slater and Plastickman records in the four years between each multi-million selling Depeche Mode or Moby album - something he has to grin and bare. In the world of the corporate music industry, where there are investors to satisfy and staff to pay what is needed is a steady income. In order to keep selling records these companies have turned to things more tangible, immediate and predictable. By dancing, flashing cheeky chappy grins, and baring flesh, a good-looking pop star veils their limited musical talents. Kylie is a supreme pop star, but not because of her voice. A pop star's talent is totally different to the talent of Elvis or The Beatles.

The problem is that McManus can't tick many of the boxes a modern pop star should. She's not thin; she can't suggestively rotate her hips like Girls Aloud or do the clench fist of agony patented by Gareth Gates (or wear oversized cowboy boots - I can't find a picture, but you watch). In pop music terms she has nothing but her average voice. It's not a problem that most pop stars have to deal with, but she does. The Pop Idol public viewers vote inevitably chooses a winner who is the most average and with so little in her arsenal, you can't help thinking she's ultimately doomed.

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Labels: TV and radio

We were interviewing at work today. One of the candidates said "It's hard to build relationships over email... unless you're a paedophile of course".

We said: "Um".

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Labels: Work

My left foot was forged on the playing fields of Thame and can shoot, pass, and dribble. My right, to use footballing parlance, is only useful for standing on. I didn’t think it could be more useless, until Boxing Day.

Boxing Day is my favourite day of the Christmas period. The pressures of present buying have gone, and you’re free to get that musty claustrophobic feeling of The Day itself out of your system. 

My Boxing Day is about football. In the morning I join The Men to wheeze my way around the local park for a couple of hours. Then it’s home, shower and off to the Boxing Day game at Oxford. 

This year’s morning game had a good turn out with a good-natured robust game of seven a side. I’d even bought a new pair of Diadora Contaccso Sg Football Boots from Brantano for fifteen quid. After an hour Gareth waltzed his way through our static defence and lined up to slot home his team’s eighth goal. I gallantly careered across to block and planted my right foot in preparation for my final lunge. Except it wasn’t my foot, but my ankle that took my full, and not inconsiderable, weight.

I felt a twisting crunching sensation in my leg and a shooting pain. Gareth suggested I “run it off”, but I could barely stand. By the time I got home swelling the size of a tennis ball began to appear around my ankle. By the time I’d foolishly hobbled to and from Oxford’s 2-1 win over Orient it was going purple.

This was my first proper sporting injury; a sprain, a proper ‘damaged ligaments’ sprain. Chicks dig sporting injuries, it was all “Ooh’s” and “Aah’s” and “shouldn’t you go to the doctors”. I was tended to and waited on for, ooh, about four and a half minutes. What I didn’t realise is that Chicks don’t dig sporting injuries for very long, Lucy was so disinterested that about 2 minutes after seeing it she acted out a What’s My Line charade of a soldier clipping my elevated foot with one forceful downward swing of her arm. Everyone winced… then laughed like drains. I thought an injury would be cool, I hadn’t anticipated the weeks of nagging, dull pain that nobody is interested in. It’s getting back to a normal colour now but it’s going to take six weeks to heal and longer to fix. 

The blood from the sprain flooded into my foot causing it to swell. I wake up in agony as the veins become packed full of goop, the hairs on top of my foot feel like tree trunks. They just don’t tell you about this stuff.


An unforeseen aside of the injury was seeing Jules. I’ve known Jules for nearly twenty years she’s funny, silly, and sporty and bullies you about your posture. I don’t see any of my friends as the eloquent, trained, skilled professionals that they are so watching Jules acting out her role as my Physiotherapist was odd. She was professional, knowledgeable, impassive, and caring. She examined me, massaged my foot and gave me advice about treatment and exercises. She even ranked it as one of the top ten sprains she’d seen. I know she’s trained to do this stuff, but there was something very soothing about it. I can’t wait until I have a CRM web enabled database problem, then I can watch Spankee at work. 

Mind you, she also took away the beer I was drinking saying alcohol was bad for the healing. Then she drank it herself which I presume is some kind of homeopathic alternative treatment.

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Labels: General me

OK, so we’re just about there. I’ve been toying with changing things around for a while and New Year seemed a sensible time to do it. There’s still quite a lot of fiddling around to do, and I think the design needs tweaking (is the old school styling right? is Courier working? is it a little bright? do we want the old logo back?) anyway, I figure it’s time to throw it at the wall and see what sticks.

So what’s new? Not much, but you can make comments on my postings, so you will inevitably meet Barry, resident of Linhope and Spankee’s flatmate. I’m pretty sure he’ll be correcting my spelling and generally hurling abuse in response to each and every post within seconds of it going live.

You can still read about who I am, although it needs re-writing. You can still have free mix CD’s. There’s a load of new links. The decaying Wants list has been replaced by a less volatile list of CD’s, which should help you to get organised if you want to rob my house. I’ve added a cast list so you can put faces to names and there are a few new pictures.

Things look a little plain on the homepage at the moment, the page looks a lot better with pictures, so on the left is a few of the CD’s I’m currently listening to and my plan is to furnish more posts with pictures and links, it’ll look lovely, promise.

Normal service is about to resume, Christmas and New Year was eventful, so prepare yourselves for the story of The Foot and our New Year shindig in Derbyshire.

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Labels: General me

WHY [smack] WON'T [smack] THIS [smack] FUCKING [smack] THING [smack] UPDATE [smack] MY [smack] SITE [smack].

Oh, that's sorted it.

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Labels: General me

For many people, today is the last day in the office before Christmas. This creates a certain bonohomie around the place as people become demob happy at the prospect of the coming festive season.

Normally, I look across the desk at the top of someones head and a wall planner. Today I am looking across my desk at novelty Christmas earrings, and a pair of novelty deely boppers.

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Labels: Work

Walking from Marylebone to Baker Street Tube yesterday morning I heard the tones of a perculiarly muffled medley of Christmas carols being sung. It sounded rather like a call to Muslim prayer as heard in those pre-war Iraqi reports on how Baghdad continues to function despite the threat of invasion. I thought, perhaps, there was a nearby Mosque I'd never heard or seen before.

But this was clearly Christian song and as far as I know George Bush hasn't achieved religious hegemony yet. My second thought was that there was a workman nearby enjoying the festive season in an area where the acoustics distored and amplified his voice across West London.

I crossed the road and passed Boots, and the singing got louder. The rush hour pedestrian traffic was quite heavy so it took a while to see where the noise was coming from. Sitting on the floor was a tiny tramp nonchelantly singing through a four foot long traffic cone.

Naturally nobody gave him money, success really does take the edge off this level of creativity.

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Labels: General me

Following the Secret Santa debacle, Friday's Christmas do was, as expected, OK. It wasn't great, nor amazing, just OK. The Ambassadors of Fun were knocked sideways, because the little taste of Rio (in Bracknell) turned out to be a just a side salad with a big kebab of Berkshire concrete hell hole on top. The reality was never going to meet the expectation, so the night was always going to be tinged with disapointment.

The food was generally dire; Tesco value pack potato wedges, pita bread and fried mushrooms passed off as canapes, microwave heated chicken, followed by Creme caramel without the crunchy top.

The entertainment came from the Red Hot Dancers, pretty girls in thongs, and greased up boys in loin cloths executing moves choreographed in the school playground. By dreading the thing all week, I gave it every opportunity to exceed my expectations. It didn't.

Finally there was the disco which was one paced and predictable. People jogged on the spot through endless office party classics. The songs are paced so not to enduce heart palpatations amongst people who call dancing "Having a bit of a boogie". If you're going to dance, you might as well dance, break sweat, turn purple, put your head in a base bin, at least camp it up a bit. If at the beginning of the next century they look back on the pop culture of yesteryear, hopefully the office party bored swaying dance won't make an appearance.

I knew things weren't going well two minutes after we left. Two women behind me were chatting. "Do you remember Morris Minor's" said one, "I don't remember" said the other.

It wasn't like there weren't people enjoying the night, tables where everyone genuinely got on seemed to have a lot of fun. I couldn't help but think that if I had gone to it with the people from the Little Publishing Company on the Hill, I would probably have had the best night ever.

Leaving your inhibitions and the subsequent consequences at the door seems to be the way to do it though. The girl in the black mini dress held together by a reel of tit tape took this approach. There was flesh everywhere, the dress was cut down to her waist, her thunderous thighs shone in the spot lights. She seemed unconcerned that her bosses were watching as she ascended onto the podium and, in front of four hundred people, proceded to give herself a gynacological examination through several Ricky Martin hits.

It seemed to be a theme of the night, whilst she was the first, she wasn?t the last. Another spent the whole of Lady Marmalade thrusting her crotch in the face of an impassive bouncer. It seems that despite the potential long term consequence of these actions, the purchase of a new g-string is not something to be kept a secret.

The women weren't alone. Men, of course, can always be drawn to the honeypot of some knicker flashing. But the disturbing and decidedly less aesthetically pleasing sight of middle aged senior managers taking the opportunity to drag their tasty marketing executive onto the dancefloor and cop feel of thigh and booby was truely unpleasent.

Not that the modern streetwise young lady of today can't cope with an unsophisticated letch. Most young ladies today know that a sultry shimmy around the belly of an overwieght Accounts Director is less of an inappropriate sexual advance and more a meaningless negotiating lever come pay review time. But the thing is, its got to make Monday's Team Meeting a little uncomfortable hasn't it?

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Labels: Work

We've just done Secret Santa.. the woman who hated what I bought her last year got a voucher. Clearly someone wasn't taking any risks. The reaction from the women? Couldn't have been more excited if she was sitting on a tumble drier.

I got a box of Celebrations Chocolates and a whiskey drinkers gift set. My Christmas is made, god bless you all.

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Labels: Work

This is where blogging comes into its own, an opportunity to release some built up tension?

God I hate Christmas at work. It's the Christmas party on Friday and people have become utterly pre-occupied by it. It's like they've never been out before. We're a small company, so we're going to a theme night in Bracknell designed for small companies, it's called something like Red Hot in Rio and sounds like hell on earth. It's going to be all novelty ties and inappropriate sexual suggestions - it's so The Office it's unreal.

'Is everyone excited about Friday' Said the girl who job appears to consist of acting as an ambassador of fun for the company.

The temptation to tell her to fuck right off was almost overwhelming, instead I showed my disdain by not looking up from my keyboard and asking what we were supposed to wear. She was horrified I didn?t know because she's been planning her outfit since fucking October.

On top of that comes the office phenomenon of Secret Santa. We're operating a kind of Secret Santa style present buying operation amongst the family this year, which is fine, we want to buy presents for these people.

I have no desire to buy a present for anyone here at work. We did it last year, and it's slowly come back to me that the person I bought for was positively offended by the £5 piece of crap I bought them. They don't know it was me, and it wasn't offensive in the obscene sense, but it was a piece of crap. This is because a. I had £5 to spend, b. I didn't know this person from Adam and c. I had no enthusiasm for the concept.

I can be a generous and creative present buyer when I want to be. Emma has benefited from Off-Roading, Simon from rally driving, and my dad was positively enthused during the series of exotic novelty fruits. But people at work?

The reason I'm blogging this is because I'm tempted to come clean and announce it was me and that I don't care because the shitty clock I got went straight in the bin at the garage before I got home. I wasn't offended by receiving this turd of a present, because I have the half a brain that is needed to know that Secret Santa is nothing more than a meaningless token effort that is only fun for compulsive present buyers who would buy presents for dead cows given half the chance.

How dare they be offended? What the hell did they expect? It?s a secret, so you can?t ask for a list, and it's £5 so your not getting a Ferrari. It is a scheme forced on us by the ambassadors of fun, which means it has appeal to the lowest common denominator.

So distressed was this person at the present I got them, that this year they've doubled the budget and allowed each person to give some suggestions. The slip of paper I picked includes Night Watch by Terry Pratchett, which helpfully someone has put in brackets: - (A book). I feel like storming downstairs and banging on the desk and shouting "I KNOW IT'S A BOOK NOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT A KORG KAOSS 2 IS?" before walking out.

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Labels: Work