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Different colours, different worlds
Feb. 10th, 2007 04:14 pmIt clearly goes without saying that I am fucked up. I mean, you have to be fucked up to produce a blog entry, a therapy in public, every day (or as near as damnit) for two years, under your own name. So I naturally have an affinity for people similarly messed in the heads, even if the only similar way in which our heads are screwed on wrong is a weird compulsion to bare our emotions in public. And I can always say to myself, well, even if I am fucked, I'm not as bad as, to pluck a name out of the air, Richard Keith Herring, who has been producing his blog daily for three years, rather than two, and has not missed a day. Now, there's OCD for you.
Actually, RKH (who has taken to mentioning Steve Bennett in his blog, which, for those of you in the know, kind of begins to make the whole thing a fraction incestuous) often expresses similar emotions to those that I am feeling at a particular time, which is even more worrying. Then again, he's 12 years younger than me, and he's worrying about these things now. Which goes to prove that in one more way, I am less fucked up than he.
It's not as if RKH produces his blog to maintain himself in the public eye; if he did, it wouldn't be the way it is. I think that, like this blog, it's just some kind of weird compulsion.
Emm Kennedy's blog is a bit more in the mode of a "professional's" blog, the kind of thing actors/screenwriters/general people on telly feel that they have to do these days. But even Emma (whose fantasy husband, of course, is RKH, which makes things even more complex) lets the personal parts of life into the blog occasionally, rather than plugging her latest book/TV series. Of particular interest was the fact that she has new upstairs neigbours (henceforth known as Mr and Mrs Bun with daughter Damienne, Spawn of Bun) with whom she has not, as it were, got off on exactly the right foot. (And that may well be one of my worst-constructed sentences since I was a five-year-old. Sorry).
I felt like e-mailing Emma and saying "Ahh, yes, my lovely neighbours downstairs are moving, and to avoid just this potential problem, I am buying the flat. Then I can choose who lives there. Cunning, or what?"
I by-passed the minor point about the massive new debt being taken on, and the like.
Perhaps Emma should desert her flat and the Buns with Spawn of Bun and come to be my tenant. I'd like Emma as a tenant. She doesn't play loud music, she's intelligent, she's a writer, and, by her own account, she's a cracking cook. And she often disappears for most of the summer to Edinburgh. I mean, what more could anyone want from someone living downstairs?
Not that there's been that much progress on the purchase, anyway. On Thursday (not, on the whole, a good day, of which more later) I found myself in the invidious position of caring what happened to short-term interest rates -- an area on which I usually try to maintain a studious macro-economic-like indifference. However, a half-point rise in the rate in the previous three months had been irritating enough; a further 25 basis points would have had me beginning to suspect that the whole thing was rigged and that the Monetary Policy Committee wanted me to lose.
So, notwithstanding that I already had about five grand (over 20 years of the mortgage, so, no real big deal) running on the MPC's decision, of course I doubled up by going short on sterling. My pleasure when the MPC had a stroke of niceness and kept rates unchanged was compounded by the sight of sterling on my screen dropping a cent in a matter of seconds. ker-ching.
All of which was very good, because Ultimate in the past week has been a case of the tap being turned off, and it looks like it's spreading to Party. The month could be a struggle..
Anyhoo, back to the "I am fucked up" bit, which was where I came in. Most people this week, if they had been in my shoes, would have been most concerned about the visit to the dentist on Friday (unless of course, they had size 12 feet, in which case, they would have been concerned that their feet were hurting as a result of being in size 8 shoes). However, this kind of thing arouses no feeling of nerves in me whatsoever. However, meeting strange people, doing strange things, and all of a sudden I'm shaking like a leaf. Go figure.
So, Friday was quite productive. Unlike Thursday, which, notwithstanding the fine decision by the MPC to keep interest rates on hold, could have been better. For a start, I had to go to collect the car. This entailed a 15-minute walk through slush in Penge, with my feet getting colder and wetter by the minute. I collected the car, paying an exorbitant servicing fee (well, expensive, perhaps not exorbitant), far more than the car would fetch me as a trade-in. But I do have two new tyres, and a new cam-thingy, and an MOT.
Shrugging my shoulders at this slightly unanticipated expense, I drove home, except that the traffic lights failed as I approached Sydenham High Road. Luckily I was near the front (of the queue of traffic. Obviously I was near the front of the car, otherwise I would have been unable to drive it) , so it was only 10 minutes before the bus driver at the front said "stuff this for a bowl of cherries" and bullied his way out to turn right. The car in front of me and my trusty Micra thought the same in unison, and we zipped out to turn left as the bus held up the traffic.
And so I was rather pleased to get home and out of some still wet clothes. Perhaps a hot bath?
Perhaps not. For there had been a power cut in the area. A quick check of the timer on the boiler told me that it had happened five hours previously.
So I telephoned EDF's emergency number. Fifteen minutes later I was still waiting.
Finally I was answered, only to be told that a fuse had gone at the sub-station and the electrician's ETA was 5.45, some 90 minutes hence.
Cold, miserable, and tired, I went to the Chinese takeaway for some comfort food (net result the following morning, +3lb) and then went to bed, covered by a duvet, a sleeping bag, a throw, and a blanket. Fuck'em, I thought, I'm going to sleep this one out.
The power came back on at 7pm. Luckily my turbo boiler fired up like a lunatic and the flat was nice and warm half an hour later. But it would be vaguely nice if the electricity supplier could, well, supply electricity. It's worse than Kazakhstan....
So, anyway, I'm going to get rid of these fears. They're stupid.
Actually, RKH (who has taken to mentioning Steve Bennett in his blog, which, for those of you in the know, kind of begins to make the whole thing a fraction incestuous) often expresses similar emotions to those that I am feeling at a particular time, which is even more worrying. Then again, he's 12 years younger than me, and he's worrying about these things now. Which goes to prove that in one more way, I am less fucked up than he.
It's not as if RKH produces his blog to maintain himself in the public eye; if he did, it wouldn't be the way it is. I think that, like this blog, it's just some kind of weird compulsion.
Emm Kennedy's blog is a bit more in the mode of a "professional's" blog, the kind of thing actors/screenwriters/general people on telly feel that they have to do these days. But even Emma (whose fantasy husband, of course, is RKH, which makes things even more complex) lets the personal parts of life into the blog occasionally, rather than plugging her latest book/TV series. Of particular interest was the fact that she has new upstairs neigbours (henceforth known as Mr and Mrs Bun with daughter Damienne, Spawn of Bun) with whom she has not, as it were, got off on exactly the right foot. (And that may well be one of my worst-constructed sentences since I was a five-year-old. Sorry).
I felt like e-mailing Emma and saying "Ahh, yes, my lovely neighbours downstairs are moving, and to avoid just this potential problem, I am buying the flat. Then I can choose who lives there. Cunning, or what?"
I by-passed the minor point about the massive new debt being taken on, and the like.
Perhaps Emma should desert her flat and the Buns with Spawn of Bun and come to be my tenant. I'd like Emma as a tenant. She doesn't play loud music, she's intelligent, she's a writer, and, by her own account, she's a cracking cook. And she often disappears for most of the summer to Edinburgh. I mean, what more could anyone want from someone living downstairs?
Not that there's been that much progress on the purchase, anyway. On Thursday (not, on the whole, a good day, of which more later) I found myself in the invidious position of caring what happened to short-term interest rates -- an area on which I usually try to maintain a studious macro-economic-like indifference. However, a half-point rise in the rate in the previous three months had been irritating enough; a further 25 basis points would have had me beginning to suspect that the whole thing was rigged and that the Monetary Policy Committee wanted me to lose.
So, notwithstanding that I already had about five grand (over 20 years of the mortgage, so, no real big deal) running on the MPC's decision, of course I doubled up by going short on sterling. My pleasure when the MPC had a stroke of niceness and kept rates unchanged was compounded by the sight of sterling on my screen dropping a cent in a matter of seconds. ker-ching.
All of which was very good, because Ultimate in the past week has been a case of the tap being turned off, and it looks like it's spreading to Party. The month could be a struggle..
Anyhoo, back to the "I am fucked up" bit, which was where I came in. Most people this week, if they had been in my shoes, would have been most concerned about the visit to the dentist on Friday (unless of course, they had size 12 feet, in which case, they would have been concerned that their feet were hurting as a result of being in size 8 shoes). However, this kind of thing arouses no feeling of nerves in me whatsoever. However, meeting strange people, doing strange things, and all of a sudden I'm shaking like a leaf. Go figure.
So, Friday was quite productive. Unlike Thursday, which, notwithstanding the fine decision by the MPC to keep interest rates on hold, could have been better. For a start, I had to go to collect the car. This entailed a 15-minute walk through slush in Penge, with my feet getting colder and wetter by the minute. I collected the car, paying an exorbitant servicing fee (well, expensive, perhaps not exorbitant), far more than the car would fetch me as a trade-in. But I do have two new tyres, and a new cam-thingy, and an MOT.
Shrugging my shoulders at this slightly unanticipated expense, I drove home, except that the traffic lights failed as I approached Sydenham High Road. Luckily I was near the front (of the queue of traffic. Obviously I was near the front of the car, otherwise I would have been unable to drive it) , so it was only 10 minutes before the bus driver at the front said "stuff this for a bowl of cherries" and bullied his way out to turn right. The car in front of me and my trusty Micra thought the same in unison, and we zipped out to turn left as the bus held up the traffic.
And so I was rather pleased to get home and out of some still wet clothes. Perhaps a hot bath?
Perhaps not. For there had been a power cut in the area. A quick check of the timer on the boiler told me that it had happened five hours previously.
So I telephoned EDF's emergency number. Fifteen minutes later I was still waiting.
Finally I was answered, only to be told that a fuse had gone at the sub-station and the electrician's ETA was 5.45, some 90 minutes hence.
Cold, miserable, and tired, I went to the Chinese takeaway for some comfort food (net result the following morning, +3lb) and then went to bed, covered by a duvet, a sleeping bag, a throw, and a blanket. Fuck'em, I thought, I'm going to sleep this one out.
The power came back on at 7pm. Luckily my turbo boiler fired up like a lunatic and the flat was nice and warm half an hour later. But it would be vaguely nice if the electricity supplier could, well, supply electricity. It's worse than Kazakhstan....
So, anyway, I'm going to get rid of these fears. They're stupid.
