The Good The Bad The Ugly and The Apparently Overweight

I was doodling on a packet of post-it notes at work on Wednesday afternoon to relieve the boredom of it all. Well one has to do something to while away the prosaic hours between breakfast and dinner. My line manager Dawson Wam was on his best behaviour as the Good, The Bad and The Ugly was spending the day in the office. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly being one person with three separate personalities and more importantly she is head office's representative on earth. Head office, like all head offices, is not based here on actual earth with the real people with real lives and abilities but on a fluffy cloud were strange people that you don't really know make impractical decisions about how you should fill your eight hours at work everyday. This is mainly by giving you 16 hours of work to do a day. Anyhoo TG,TB,TU was floating about, not literally, and as she was still in the good phase of personality transformation Dawson Wam was all arms round the shoulder and making coffee for us oiks. It was, as you can imagine, all very disturbing. 

So I used the time wisely to doodle, the usual sort of doodle - box, with bits coming off the box, with lines drawn round the box and so on. I wondered to myself if my doodle was any good, was I in fact a master of modern art? Did my little bic pen scribbled flicks and jaunty angles mean anything? Was I too old to be an enfant terrible of the art world? Would Melvyn Bragg want to interview me for a South Bank Show special to be shown on a bank holiday weekend? My mind wanders terribly when I'm doodling. I was jolted out of my work induced malaise by the sharp, rasping sound of TG,TB,TU coming my way with Dawson Wam following her up like a little snappy puppy.

Such a Frightful Predicament!

I had a terrible night's sleep. The Cousin hasn't returned and still hasn't made contact despite my having sent him six text messages, six emails and having left three concerned voicemails. And all that whilst trying to fend of accusations that I pulled a fake sickie on Thursday from Dawson Wam. He's like a dog with a bone, a time keeping terrier if you will. He won't let it go either the absolute bastard. But I don't have the capacity nor the energy right now to deal with him so I might just fake another sickie and go home half day today. You need to have your wits about you if you are going to lie right in the face of the devil's representative on earth. Throwing another sickie will get me away from Dawson "I'm gonna git boy" Wam and give me thinking time to work out what I'm gonna do about the missing cousin. Plus it will give my first sickie credibility and in a way make me look like a hero for coming back to work when not fully fit. 

He may not be able to reply to my many communications as he may not have his phone any more having swapped it for some non-feta based foods with a Cypriot prison guard. But I just don't know what to do about his parents. Obviously they will look favourably on me when the police hand them his personal effects, if he is as Drumgor predicts as dead as,"George Lucas's career". All the messages I left were almost all sincere and they will no doubt be impressed by this should his phone show up.

But just when should I phone them?

Roll up Roll up, Place your Bets….

I took Thursday off work. I just said sod it and phoned in sick. I was hoping to get one of my fellow oiks on the other end of the phone but no such luck, I got my line manager and man with the nose of a bloodhound Dawson Wam instead. Honestly his ability to sniff out bullshit, even over the phone, is quite remarkable. There was once a chap who had phoned in to say he wouldn't be coming in as his house had been broken into and he was going to have to deal with that. Now most people would wish the chap well and maybe even get a bit of a whip-round going for the chap as a way of showing solidarity. Not Dawson Wam, no fucking chance. Within minutes and I mean minutes the chap on the other end of the phone had admitted it was a lie, broke down in tears and agreed to be Wam's man servant for a month by way of apology. Oh yes he's a fearsome adversary. Obviously I had planned for such an eventually, one must be prepared when dealing with the devil's representative on earth.

The Day we went to Church

Disappointingly I had reason to find myself in church recently. It doesn't seem to matter how long it has been since you last went you inevitably find yourself slipping back into the routine of mass quickly enough. So with that in mind it was no surprise that I was fighting off lovely lovely sleep after only five minutes. Sleeping being routine for me at mass. Church sleep is some of the loveliest and most comfortable sleeps you can get. It's second only to sleeping during work. I'm not sure why it is so lovely and rewarding but it really is. I'm sure it has something to do with the rhythmic recanting of prayers and what have you. You see this is what Free Presbyterian miss out on what with all the shouting and accusations they have to put up with during their Sunday service. It's not the content of the prayers and what have you; I'm not bored into to sleep nor am I comforted into a mid morning snooze. It really is just about the way it is said. Honestly they could be reading from the sweary texts of Charlie Brooker, Charles Bukowski or Adrian Mole and you would still find me drifting off after a minute or two. Actually Brooker gives me nightmares, mainly about Nicky Campbell.

The Accidental House Guest – Introducing The Cousin

What The Cousin Thinks He Looks LikeWhoop whoop! They've gone to work! The two of them, the feckless fidget twins, at the same time, on the same day, leaving the house and all it's TV's and radios to me. This is a rare and golden moment. I feel like tuning them all to Radio Four just for the hell of it. Anyway where was I? Oh that's right I was explaining how I ended up living with Drumgor the Wookiee and The Cousin. It's a tragedy bordering on farce bordering on cruel and unusual punishment, the sort banned under UN law. To understand why this is so you have to have a peak at my life in the happy times, the carefree days before Wookiee hair clogged the bath and my home became the postal address of The Cousin's obsession and slightly odd organisation: "The Midsomer Murders Fan Club and Reenactment Group".

My life back then was filled with positivity and plans for the future, it was the new millennium, positivity reigned supreme! I intended to scale mountains, not literally of course, push the hell out of envelopes, make every problem an opportunity and set seemingly unattainable goals. I was a determined young go getter with dreams and aspirations (and a full collection of motivational posters that I quoted from on a daily basis). I had a life plan, I was vital. I got invited to the most exclusive of parties and no soiree was quite complete until I arrived armed with my wit and wisdom and wonderful wine. But now my life plan lies discarded like the used underwear of a bitter and regretful individual who is labouring under the skittery brown yoke of diarrhea. My dreams have been shit on and my plans are crusted over. The only parties I get invited to now are the ones where the main guest is 7 years old and in some way related. My chums have long since abandoned me and I have all but stopped caring. But I still sigh on those rare occasions when I allow my mind to wander back to the slender years before The Cousin arrived...