Back in the saddle

Riding motorcycles is fucking scary. No seriously, they are weird and wrong.

I was all wobbly and inelegant, everyone was out to kill me and it all felt very unsafe.

I stopped for petrol and had a word with myself saying things like 'you love this' and 'this is the reason you got this job'.

After that things got a bit better, and over a long weekend of riding I got mostly back to where I was before. I say mostly because I can spot areas that I'm still not riding very well.

It was a nice return to riding, and it was also nice being able to ride down to London to see the girl. I handed the bike back after a weekend of riding. I'd covered about 550 miles which is pretty good going and it didn't have a scratch on it.

I think we will mark that one down as a win.

The joy of packing

I can't believe it but I really, really enjoy packing. Moving house is a nightmare but I love packing for adventures.

Today is a good example. I have to pack three seperate items.

1) Gym bag for three visits to the gym
2) Weekend bag, that will keep me presentable until Monday
3) Overnight bag for today, with a laptop and champagne

The gymbag will live at work so that is the easy one. Although I'm going to the gym today. So I need to put at least one days worth of sexy pants in that, for the date tonight.

The weekend bag is tricky. I've got a work event so I need to wear a range of styles of clothing and then I'll be in London so that's a different dress code. I need the absolute minimum because, as ever, space is limited. I'll be presenting awards, hanging around with the 'salt of the earth' and walking a beagle. So yes, quite a range.

It's like a complicated logic puzzle of clothes and I love it.

The spaz rides again.

Tomorrow will be a big day. Not because it means pay-day is less than a week away but because I will ride a motorbike for the first time since the crash about seven months ago.

I've had to get a new helmet since the last one is now being used as presentation aid of what happens when you crash. The company who made it are delighted that it worked so well. The new helmet is white (nice and visible), I used to only wear silver helmets but it's time for a change.

I'm excited to get back on a bike but also a bit nervous, my last ride was well eventful and it's taken about six months before I can kneel again. I doubt the circulation in my foot will ever fully recover. I'm not dead though, and I can walk and run nd things. let's focus on the important stuff.

I've only got the bike for a few days - I'm being loaned it to ride to a work thing, so this is a test really, and a blessing. A blessing because having suddenly increased mobility means I can whizz down to London to see the girl. The girl that things are going very well with.

So well that I'm going to see her on the weekend too. Blimey, that's like a few days in a row. What ever next?

In which Louche and his possy win an award.

I won, well my team and I won. So that's good. We deserved it.

The awards were fun, they looked and acted like the awards off the telly but with terrible presenters (The MD and some head of digital lady) and far more drunken tomfoolery.

For a while it looked like we weren't going to get any awards, we didn't even get nominated for some catagories. People started getting a bit fighty and then we won some stuff and it calmed down a bit.

I got drunk, made some good contacts in the London office and danced. Chuck came over and talked to me which was a bit awkward but I managed get involved in an arm-wresting contest with a co-worker and she went away. Phew.

We nearly got stranded in London - the coach back tried to leave without us. But the Hat had already said I could stay at her place if I wanted.

It was a terribly kind offer, which I wanted to take up but I thought I should really hang around with my award winning team. You know celebrate with the darling little nerds.

Which one is suitable?

I'm applying for more jobs now. I'm going to try and apply for at least one a day. The company awards are on Thursday, and I'm going to use them to chat to loads of London people and pimp myself out.

I need to think carefully about what to wear. I have my trusty pinstripe suit. It's brilliantly cut, has served me well and gets compliments.

Or I could dig out the lilac suit, it's a bit mad so people won't forget me, but well it's quite loud. I suppose I shouldn't buy loud suits if I'm not going to wear them. It's a tricky one.

The Lilac suit will cause a scene (if I still fit into it) but will it make people think 'gosh I need to give that chap a job'?

Also I'm not sure how I'm going to get home from the awards either. There is a coach back to work, but then I'll have to get back to the Wilderness.

If I'm going to be stuck in the middle of no-where I think I'd prefer to be in a faintly normal suit, although in hindsight stumbling around the countryside at 3am dressed as a dandy makes a better story.

Job Fail

I didn't get the job, I didn't even get an interview for the job. Bah humbug.

Can't give up though. I must be resolute, I must get a job in London and that's just that. No turning back. V. annoying though. This job would have been terribly convenient, and probably good fun. Bah again.

Right, back to the hunt.

Waiting and running

Tomorrow is the closing date for applications for the job. I'm rather excited, even though I know it's decidedly dangerous to get too excited about these sort of things.

I can't help but day dream about life in London again, a life where I bump into chums in the street and people call up and say 'I've got a spare ticket to X, fancy coming along tonight?'

I miss meeting friends for lunch but most of all I miss the seasons of London. Not just the different times of year, but the different times of day.

The white heat of post-work Soho, to the eery silence of early morning Knightsbridge. Lazy lunch times in Hampstead and even the frantic bustle of Picadilly.

These used to be part of my day, I could go and see facinating art, or stare at dinosaurs for free, and walk there and back. Many bizarre adventures to strange parts of London were undertaken with the warming comfort that if it all went wrong I could just walk home.

I once got lost in the city after drinking with a strange mixture of people and had to use the river to navigate. I found it, got on the North side and then bimbled my way home.

To some people that would sound like a nightmare, but to me it's now a fond memory.

I really home I get this job.

The joy of drains (no really)

I just spent three hours unblocking the drains. They aren't perfect but they work now. I know absolutely nothing about drains so the first hour was spent timidly poking things with a stick.

Then I started taking the drain covers off, each progressively more disgusting than the last. By the time I got to the third cover, at the end of the garden I was feeling rather lost. The poking wasn't working and I was thinking about calling for someone who actually knew what they were doing.

Then the miracle happened, the drains sort of went 'bloop' and they started, well, draining and this caused a chain reaction. It was excellent. All sorts of vaguely disgusting things started moving around and disappearing.

I like it when you try and do something you don't know how to do and then after a good amount of challenge you beat it.

I think I'll check in on the drains again tomorrow, and hopefully if I have another shower I'll stop smelling quite so bad - which would be nice because I feel well macho and I am tempted to go out boozing to impress girls with my rudimentary maintenance skills.

Yikes

A great job has just appeared. A job that would be almost perfect for me. Well perfect actually but you know what I mean, it's in LONDON and everything.

So now I must frantically work my C.V. and update all those dull statements. Also I need to write a covering letter to make someone laugh. Argh, etc.

I should probably work on that then, instead of messing around on here. But you know how it is, you have something important and hard to do and so you spend ages moving chairs around and writing on blogs.

Recipe: Louche Potatoes

A snack for people who are too busy to sit down for a proper meal, or the Earl of Sandwich types who want a sandwich style snack without using bread.

Step 1: Take a reasonably large potato. Microwave it until it is cooked.

Step 2: Cut a slit in the top and push some nice cheese inside, as much cheese as you like. Add some Worcestershire sauce if you like. More than one slit can be cut and cheesed but try not to make the potato fall to pieces.

Step 3: Leave for a moment so the cheese melts and the potato calls enough for you to hold with your fingers.

Step 4: Eat.

House spaz

I need a housemate. I am shocked by how expensive living on your own is. The rent on the cottage is very reasonable, a steal by London standards, but it's all the extra stuff that is crippling. My council tax is vast and relentless add to this water (also huge) and I'm basically spent. It's a godsend that my energy usage is minimal.

It makes one wonder what the point of working is? When the bar to supporting yourself is so high. I suppose it's taught me that living on your own is far more expensive then you think and you should really do some sums before considering it.

Instead I had a sort of knee-jerk reaction to a relationship falling to pieces that I thought I could repair with a cottage. It didn't work and now this admittedly very pleasant house is a huge weight around my neck.

What a spaz I am

Becoming Zoolander

My jeans are now so loose that I can slip them off without undoing them. I've only just noticed this. I'm hoping this will perhaps save my life if my trousers catch on fire while I'm wearing mittens.

Mostly it just makes it looks like I've just inherited my big brother's trousers and I'm hoping to grow in to them.

I should point out that I'm not wasting away or anything like that. Quite the opposite. One thing I have become is more complicated to draw. What was a slightly doughy shape now has definition and lines to it. It's very compelling to slowly turn into an anatomical diagram of muscle groups.

I'm looking forward to showing my 'project' to the girl I'm sort of seeing. I say sort of there have been dates, with more on the cards. Not quite 'dating' but potentially the beginning of something. I'd be seeing her far more often but being in different counties rather makes things more complicated, not to mention expensive.

to try and resolve the situation I spoke to an editor in London about jobs but sadly there was nothing suitable, this will be the first of many enquiries. I've decided every day I have to do something job related, as in find another job in London.

I am done with the wilderness and it is time to return to my beloved city.

Tough Tuesday

That's what yesterday will be known as from now on. In one day I was denied a raise, not give a motorbike (when everyone else in the office got one) and found out I wasn't getting a travel assignment I'd previously been told I was getting.

So yes, I understand all of these things are perks and one should be glad of what you have but still, it stings.

I knew I wasn't going to be getting a bike, due to the work ban so that's the least surprising one. Think of it as a little angsty cherry on top of the cake of woe.

The raise is annoying. I did ask my direct boss, how my job could have gone any better? I've massively exceeded every possible target and even though it's not a part of my job, I'm bringing in extra cash to the company, quite a considerable amount. These are all the reasons why I'm being put forward for an award. Gah.

The travel trip would have been lovely and the person charge of it had previously emailed me to say I was 'top of the queue' for the trip.

All in one day! Gah! It's as if you devised the perfect storm to make me update my C.V. then this was it.

I suppose today can't be any worse, that's a plus right?

Moob pride

I've got norks. Get in.

Yup I've grown man-breasts. I can't wait to tart them about. I'm totally going to let some girl feel them up behind the bike sheds if she buys me a can of cider or some penny chews and tells me I have nice eyes.

I was going to try and just hit at my new norks with perhaps some low-cut t-shirts but that's too classy for me. I'm a man nork slut.

I could justify wearing a bra now, probably. Well, I could justify wearing a bra if they made man bras for pecks. I bet they do on the interspaz but for now I think I'll stay natural and stuff. Operation Hollywood Tits is a success.

Operation six pack is going okay too. In the right light I have one but I need more work before I can become a stand-in for JLS.

I also need to eat less chocolate but I'm addicted to the stuff. Why is that? < SEXIST JOKE > Is that because of the norks? < / SEXIST JOKE>. Either way I just have to have some of the stuff at least once a day.

I would totally flash my man-melons for chocolate.

Norks!

Bleh

I have been ill. Nothing fatal, just man flu. It saps the soul a bit though and is boring. So very boring. Also when you ill alone it just means your house gets messy.

Sadly the NHS doesn't extend to having someone deliver chicken soup to your house. It really should though. That would have definitely helped.

Aside from being ill there isn't mcuh to report really, oh I finished the third draft of the book and sent it off to my agent so that's something I suppose. I'll hear in a bit if it made the grade or not. The nice thing about having it with him is that for the first time in ages I don't have a feeling that I should be doing homework. That's nice.

It's only a few weeks till the company awards now. I've been put up for one - I'm not sure if I'm a finalist yet or anything but I'm going to hang around till that is over. I am looking at other jobs but I won't make any moves until I find out if I get the award. It would look good on the C.V.

London, reprise.

London was good again. Not excellent but definitely good. I went out far too much again. I just can't resist it. The fact that London is packed with interesting strangers I've not met yet is just so hard to say no to.

I think I had about 5 hours of sleep over the whole weekend. I caught up with some old chums (but not enough) and I had a date or two. The latter events were rather confusing. (A date that was a bit anodyne and a 'just be friends' who was acting weird)

I'm not good at reading if a girl is in to me or not and so if a date doesn't end with a girl either telling me to never call her again or demanding I take her to bed I'm at a loss.

I'm sure it will resolve itself in time, these things usually do. Until then I'll concentrate on work and the gym. At the moment I'm working on macho-moobs (going well) and a sixpack.

Sixpacks are extremely hard work, stomach muscles take ages to build up. Also it's very easy to do sit-ups wrong and have almost no effect. I was told by the gym chap that if you can do more than 20 sit-ups in a row you are doing it wrong. He has shown me how to do them correctly and after about ten I feel like I've been punched in the gut.

I'm making progress though, and that's all I need really. Just enough progress to keep me interested. I've still not got the hang of learning when to stop in the gym, yesterday I ruined myself again by trying to do two whole cardio routines in a row.

Note to self: don't do that.

The quest for Hollywood tits

It's only a day till pay day. Hurrah for pay, and days with pay in them!

In other news I'm actually really enjoying work at the moment. I don't know why but that week off really refreshed me and so I'm going at it like a trooper at the moment. This hasn't actually had any effect, it's more like I'm banging my head against a brick wall with gusto rather then vague disinterest.

The only other thing of note to happen yesterday is that I briefly wore a t-shirt in public (post gym) and a workmate said I looked like a pugilist. So I suppose that's a sign, I've now reached the point that if I wear anything even vaguely skimpy people comment on my figure. So there you go, it takes about 3 months and you have to eat differently. That's been the biggest surprise that food makes such a difference. Not more, not less, just better.

The next step in the gym plan is 'Hollywood tits' this ridiculous pectorals that you see in films. I want to see if I can grow some of them. It's like gardening but with your own body.

Gym member of the month

Yes I finally did it. I am gym member of the month. I was 5 days clear of my nearest competitor, the LOSER*

I think this is another sign that I'm turning into a gym bunny. Anyway seeing I was member of the month I decided to do a post-week off work out. It was a hardcore one because after a week of not working out I had loads of energy. Also since I was member of the month I had to show the lesser mortals in the gym how things were done.

To add to the fun the air conditioning was broken.

And so I worked out so hard that I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening feeling really quite sick. So sick that I had to give myself a bit of a talking to. I was about to fall asleep but I'd promised a girl that I'd call her to arrange a second date. The talking to worked and so that was sorted out *phew*.

Morale of the story, when you are starting to flag at the end of the work out stop and think 'okay time to calm down' instead of thinking 'FEEL THE BURN COME ON YOU CAN DO ANOTHER TWENTY MINUTES'. Or put another way, I am a spaz.

I went to the gym again today but took it easy (for me) and instead feel rather marvellous this evening. A big improvement I feel.

I'm going to celebrate by not eating brown rice. Good times.

*who probably has a social life.

The Office

I now have an office. It's because I have to finish this book soon. Have to. I will finish it if it kills me.

Through experience I have learned that writing means cleaning. When I have something difficult to write I clean a lot to put off doing it for a while.

I used this pro-actively by moving my laptop into the small spare bedroom. This room is where I put mess, mess and motorcycle gear. So it's in a bit of a state. Or at least it was. I started writing, and it went well. Every time I was stuck on something I did a little bit of cleaning and organising. I found so many lost things it was like I'd been shopping.

The room is now mostly organised. There are still a few more things to sort out but it looks much better. I think I'll do some more writing in it again tonight to finish off the cleaning.

I'm gearing up on the book writing even more now, I've covered a wall in post-it notes with various plot-holes, questions that need to be answered and a whole column that is just 'need more'.

The only slight problem is that I've constructed this installation downstairs and my new 'office' is upstairs. Oh bum.

I think I'll leave it downstairs though, so it's in my face and not hidden away in a room. I can't put it off any longer, I have to finish it. MUST MUST MUST. Yes, I've entered the madness stage of a writing project, so it was a week off well spent.

Chat Roulette, a review

I thought I'd have a go on ChatRoulette since people kept tweeting about it. I went on it and saw a lot of winkies. I mean really quite a lot of winkies.

Old winkies, small winkies, dark winkies. I got rejected by stranger's winky. So that's a new experience. You are randomly paired up with people and then if they don't look like fun you press F9 to get a new person. It seems that if you let the world communicate with each other at random what you will see is a lot of wink wonks.

I only managed one brief actual conversation with someone, who said they were 'inteviewing for a paper'. They didn't show me their winky and for a tiny moment I sort of saw what the website was supposed to be about, random people talking about things via video chat. Then I saw some more winkies.

The users of Chat Roulette seem to fall into a few groups

1) A disembodied winky being touched. Or a close up of some awful underpants, which I assume contain a winky.

2) Lone man, badly lit probably with a beard and a hat on. He is probably thinking about showing you his winky.

3) A group of giggling girls who will demand to see your winky.

That's it really.