Yesterday, we attended the baptism of our niece. She the child of my brother-in-law. It was a fair trek across to Hemel Hempstead and it didn’t help matters that we were running late and forgot the baby’s 1st birthday presents. Luckily, we made it in time and I found myself having front row seats right in front of the Vic. The usual Christian mumbo-jumbo was said and I pleased myself by remembering the Lord’s Prayer by heart – a throwback to being a good Christian during my schooldays. The child was very well-behaved during the ceremony and screaming was kept to a minimum. Hurrah!
Afterwards, there was a reception/birthday party in the church hall. I am terrified by social situations like this but you are obligated, aren’t you? I put on my best face and was non-commital throughout, ensuring that I didn’t annoy anyone that I spoke to. Well done, Darren. Another family disaster averted by your contrary views. You kept your mouth buttoned up tight, an admirable feat of almost tantric self-control. Bridges were built and we were actually invited to a family BBQ in the summer. Normally, we are NOT invited to these things, so my new strategy of not talking is paying off. Just agree with everyone, it is safer. Agree and nod your head and laugh and do all the gestures that infer that you are enjoying yourself. In the past I would have said: “I disagree with XYZ – even though what those people were saying was complete BS” but that gets you into trouble. Just shut up. Shut up and agree with everyone. Tell them what they want to hear, rather than what you want to say. It worked. I am a social success.
The only thing more terrifying than strangers in a social situation for me is children running loose. People are unpredictable and children doubly so. Everyone who met us said: “So when are you going to be next?” implying that we are going to start dropping sprogs at the first opportunity. Of course, we prefer practising rather than doing the practical exam. I kept telling the Missus: “Just tell them that I am clinically sterile after a bout of childhood mumps. That will shut them up.” But she never did and so we went along with it and laughed about it and all the while I keep thinking to myself why are people so obsessed with our fertility (or lack of it)? Throughout my life, I’ve had various people and strangers ask varieties of the old “When are you…?” question.
“When are you going to get your hair cut?”
“When are you going to get a job?”
“When are you going to leave home?”
“When are you going to get married?”
“When are you going to have kids?”
“When are you going to get divorced?”
Et cetera to the point of absolute tedium.
God, I must sound like a grouch, but despite my recent whinging yesterday did have a positive effect. It was nice to get out and socialise. I enjoyed the baptism and reception a lot – it was good fun. As I have very little social interaction with anyone other than The Missus and my mother, it is good to meet other people and say to yourself: “Well I might be a complete dick, but at least I’m not like him” remembering the pent-up aggressive salesman type who promised us in conversation that one day the pressure of the world would get so much for all us men that we would run amok and slaughter our families. Of course, I agreed, because that’s what I do now. I agree. Ain’t I a clever boy?
Before we went to this baptism, I said to The Missus that I had worked out that last year I had actually spoken (in a coversational sense) to less than 15 people. This makes me sound like a crank, but I live a very secluded life. It is self-imposed, I guess. But what do you do when all your friends at school go off and do other things while you go to University? How do you make friends at university when all your peers are of a different social standing and look down on you? Making friends at work is also an equally pointless exercise as you invariably lose touch or, as I have found, that there was never any real friendship there in the first place. You hang around together out of desperation because there’s no one else to go to the pub with. The problem with people is that I am a bit of a mug and I always end up getting taken advantage of, so I avoid them. Plus I am shy. And I’m lazy too. So this combination hardly makes me eligible for best friend material!
Don’t get me wrong, I am not asking for sympathy, I am just thinking aloud and providing some kind of narrative to my life. Being an only child, I have never had any problem being by myself. I am a creative sort who is happy when left alone, but the Missus thinks it is a bit unhealthy. I guess it can be, you just need to keep a grip on reality. (Where did that pink elephant come from?) Whenever I think of this topic of being sociable and having friends, I always think back to my dear old dad.
I remember, I couldn’t have been five or six when he took me to one side and told me that no-one liked me and I’d never have any friends. He was a good bloke was my old dad (sarcasm). As you can imagine, this fried my mind for a while and I spent the next couple of weeks asking everyone if they liked me, causing my nan to get very worried about me. I never did tell my mother or my nan what this was about, but I am telling you now. Ain’t the Internet weird? As I have got older, I realise that what my father was telling me wasn’t a statement of fact, but a curse. I believe I am cursed.
Either that or I really am barking mad…
Today, Operation Colonic Irrigation continues and I am having another clear-out. More DVDs on eBay, more CDs too – a lot of stuff is going because a boy needs to grow up into a man. If you hold onto this stuff, there’s just more fuel to the fire when the house burns down, no?
Category: Diary
Having no credit card means that I can no longer place bets with online bookies such as Victor Chandler. This meant that today’s Grand National had to be gambled on using the traditional betting slip. It had been a good few years since I remembered how to fill one out, but we got along fine. In an afternoon’s gambling, two of my horses came last and my Grand National Nag fell over somewhere on the course. Remember kids, gambling only pays when you are winning.
Still royally pissed off. I ran through a long list of things that I am annoyed at with the Missus. She asked if I felt better, but my belly-aching didn’t particularly improve my general mood. My annoyance is like a loose tooth that wants to be pulled. I need a spiritual kick up the bum. I am tired of being me. Me is a miserable git and he is getting on my nerves. Roll on the warmer weather, eh?
Today, in the post, a letter from Barclaycard telling me that they believe my card is being used fraudulently. In the letter, details of further purchases totalling £250+. Looks like I managed to nip the spending spree in the bud. I call Barclaycard again to clarfiy the situation and run through what’s my purchases (new filter for fishtank and £10 spent playing poker at Ladbrokes – my only vice other than drinking and the ol’ in-and-out with The Missus). The rest are purchases use for AlphaTelecom.
Yesterday, I used 192.com to do a registry check on who lived at the address where the fraud was carried out. A Nigerian surname came right back at me. Looks like those wily Nigerians have got me in their trap. But how? The credit card I use never leaves the house and is predominantly for web use. I only use it on “decent” websites such as Amazon and places that have automated purchasing systems. How did they get my card? I’ve scanned and examined my PC for viruses and spyware and keyloggers. It’s bugging me.
You can hit me in the head and call me names, but when it comes to money worries they really get to me. It’s my weakness. I leave the Missus to deal with money because she’s good at it. Reading these letters and dealing with this fraud makes me feel sick to the stomach, even though I’ve stopped them early. I know it is stupid, but that’s how I feel.
The past couple of weeks are really grinding me down…but despite all this, I know that out there somewhere there’s someone else having a worse time and I should be grateful that I am who I am. Even so, I can’t seem to shift this dark cloud.
Off too look at my new fish in my tank…more about those tomorrow…
So it started like a regular day with Alex waking me up at 6am so I could hoist him up onto the bed. Ever since the dog attack, I’ve relented on my “no bed” policy and now Alex wakes me at the same time every morning, so he can curl up next to me on the bed. He’s a good lad and doesn’t wriggle and when it is cold, keeps me warm.
After breakfast, I took Alex to the newsagents to get the daily comic and the local newspaper, latest headline “Sam Stays In For Another Week” – referring to The Apprentice – oh how wrong you are. I was feeling pleased with myself as I remarked last night how the local paper will cock it up and would stake money on it. Right again!
I go home, have a coffee, read through the papers. Then the post arrives – Alex alerts me and I open the solitary letter. It is a receipt from Comet – the electronics retailer – telling me that I’ve recently purchased a laptop, except I haven’t and the adrenalin kicks in. A call to Coment prevents the laptop being delivered. At this point, I think that it has just been a mistake. I call Barclaycard and they inform me that £616 has been taken from my account and given to Comet. My card is blocked and a new one issued. Another phone call to Comet and I explain that it is definately a fraud case and they agree to credit my card. The sale was made over the telephone by someone with all my details.
I have the fraudsters details for anyone Googling credit card fraud comet manchester Mr Show <--- That's for the Googlebot and feel free to drop me a line if you have been a victim of this person (I am especially looking forward to the Manchester Police Fraud Squad). This is the third time I've been a victim of fraud. The first time was many years ago when a restaurant in Nottingham kept charging my card for meals. The second was that florist in Canada who I used to order flowers for MalcX. They charged me double and I still worry that the flowers never turned up and Barclaycard never did managed to credit my card. At least this time I got the first punch in. So we've had two misdemenours in the last fortnight, in my book we are expecting one more. I reckon that a car window might get smashed in the up and coming weeks. Talking of misdemeanours, it has been reported to me that the Mastiff Man of Colebrook Lane was recently responsible for an attack on a doberman dog in which its throat was ripped. How long before a dog dies because of this moron and his mastiff?
Yesterday, I cleaned out my fish tank. A while ago, I had decided to get rid of my fish tank and free up the space in the corner of the living room. Most of the fish had died of natural causes and was a bit peeved to stock up the tank again. The plan was to let the remaining two catfish go to the big toilet in the sky and get rid of the tank. However, the catfish have other ideas and aren’t going anywhere. After all this time, I have decided to restock and have bought a new filter. I just didn’t have the heart to do away with them myself – even if I could just flush them down the loo in one quick motion. No – I couldn’t do that. So tomorrow we are off to buy some new fish and plants. Fishtank 1 – Darren 0.
Yesterday, I was ploughing through the usual wittering at the DGMLive Forum and the topic of conversation was about the music of King Crimson being used in film and TV. I am somewhat a fan of the band and remembered two good examples of adverts that had used the music. The first was an advert for Natrel Plus deoderant in 1996 which featured some afro-carribbean chap turn from a tree into a person to the strains of the song “Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream”. which wasn’t on TV that often and I don’t have a copy of anywhere in the sprawling Lock Videotape Archive.
The second advert was for Dunlop, which was just a retread (get it) of the Tony Kaye campaign which was originally scored by The Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs”. This time around it featured King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man”. Of course, I don’t have this clip in the collection either, but a brief scout online found a digital copy of the original advert. So I went into the editing studio, cut out the Velvet Underground track and added an edited version of the song how I remember it. It probably was nothing like this at all, but this gives you an idea of how the music of King Crimson can help shift some tyres:
In The Apprentice last night, weedy Samuel bought the farm. Thank god. Despite being a relatively local boy (from Woodford and his gurning face appearing in the local paper every week with the headline “Sam Stays In”) I took a dislike of the guy from the outset. This is probably because he was one of the indecisive, too scared to put his balls on the line, wishy-washy coasters that go through life climbing on the back of others and generally, dodging the bullet. This time he couldn’t avoid being the target.
Hopefully, next week, Alan Sugar will dump Tuan as he is getting up my nose too…and that Sharon, who appears to be strung out on Angel Dust each week – it’s the only way to explain her foul mood swings. I still think there should be a UK/US special where Trump and Sugar head two Anglo-American teams in an Apprentice Battle Royale. Heck, give me a million quid for the idea, Mark Burnett.
TV is great at the moment. We have Sugar doing his grumpy Nookie Bear impression (that should get more Google hits) on the Apprentice, the new series of Doctor Who begins on 15 April and my Uncle Don Load is supplying me with some great stuff from the US. For example, we get TWO doses of the Apprentice every week thanks to Donald Trump’s original show airing for a fifth season parallel with our own show. The US series is still superior to our own because there really is a sense of wealth and splendour and the whizzy NY skylines compared to the drab and dreary cuts of London (now twinned with Brentwood) in our own show. Sugar might be an entrepreneur, but he is small potatoes compared to Trump and this limits the show somewhat. But what the heck, I am still enjoying both shows.
My new love is something called “American Inventor”. It’s like Dragon’s Den but without that Andy Serkis guy from the Lord of the Rings movies wittering on about his precious inventions and constantly fricking reiterating exactly what happened on the screen precisely 30 seconds after it has happened like we are all comatose goldfish stuck on the wrong side of the cathode ray bowl. But I digress…American Inventor takes the idea of Dragon’s Den of finding clever inventions and combines it with a Pop Idol type panel – heck, even Peter Jones from Dragon’s Den appears on the show as the mean and sensible Englishman – a bit like Simon Cowel but without the good teeth. The show works so well because it manages to parade the right combination of genuinely clever inventions with socially inept crackpots and those inventors with a sob story. Like the guy who sold everything, left his wife and is living in his car to push his idea for “Bullletball” – a game which is basically pingpong without the net and without the paddles and you use your hands to hit the ball. He wanted it to be an Olympic sport – the guy had clearly forgotten to take his medication.
It is so brilliantly wonderful that the Media Guardian reported today that there is a bidding war to bring a UK version. I don’t think a UK version would work because we already have Dragon’s Den for that, but they should immediately put the US series on ITV2. It shows just why US TV shows like this are better than our own because they have more entertaining nutters than we have here.
Uncle Don also sent me the second US series of the Office which has now eclipsed its UK version on the funny scale. Watching the Gervais version now quite an ordeal of tedium. Funny how it goes. Over here, still liking “My Name is Earl” which has a novel concept and has characters that are instantly likeable, even though they might have a dubious past. Jason Lee rules with his Tom Selleck moustache.
Anyway, enough with the TV talk, you will think I’ve got square eyes!
Not much to report today – though I have developed a rather large spot on the back of my right knee, which is absolutely excrutiating. I can’t squeeze it for fear of saying the world’s loudest expletive and walking is sore as the material of my trousers rubs against it. It is too cold to walk the street trouserless and I don’t fancy being locked up as the Loughton Loony just yet. Tomorrow, I will post a picture of Alex and his new haircut. Or is that a furcut?
Names for things, which don’t have names:
Back of the knee
A dog’s haircut
Answers on the proverbial postcard, please.
In the post: a freebie from Sony. A little case to hold things for the PSP. Aaahhh, it was a nice surprise but utterly useless to my needs. Might come in handy in the future, who knows.