Foolish

I miss you so much my teeth hurt. I miss you even though I know you are the devil in a woman suit. I miss how your long, thick, chestnut hair fell on the pillowcase. I miss the way you wiggled your nose when you were thinking and how you would wrap yourself around a project until you achieved perfection.

I miss listening to you talk in your sleep.

My family and friends didn’t like you much. They thought, still think, that you were aloof, cold and pretty much an uncaring, selfish bitch. Back then I defended you, as good boyfriends do. I was stupid in love with you and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could say that would break the spell.

Being with you was like playing tennis with someone better- I had to up my game. You were smarter, I was more clever, you were a hopeless optimist and I was a calculating realist, I was the better photographer but you were the better artist. Our biggest failing was that we were never a team. We were never able to lash together a constructive working arrangement. There was respect, I guess, but it was only shown grudgingly. You were too concerned with never admitting you were wrong about anything at all and I was too busy resenting how fucking brilliant and beautiful you were.

When you left me you said it was because I wasn’t the one for you. We both know that, at the time, it was just a bullshit excuse because what you really wanted was the freedom to fuck all the pretty little college boys you found. In the long run however you were spot on. We weren’t right for each other; the few times I have seen you since have confirmed that fact. After ten minutes in your company I realize that I don’t find you in the least bit fun to be around. You never make me laugh, your pop-n-fresh optimism is unnerving and your new-found social and environmental conscience, not to mention your British accent, are thin affectations.

Of course I still want to fuck you. Call me shallow if you will but you’re still a slammin’ hottie and I don’t hate you enough not to want to rub soap all over those perfect breasts.

So here I am, 36,000’ over Germany listening to sad songs and thinking about you. Pathetic I know but that’s how it is. Since you left I’ve been with women smarter, better in bed, almost as beautiful and certainly easier to live with but I have never found a replacement. Occasionally you say you want to be my friend but I’ll have none of it. I don’t know how to be friends with you- I don’t want you in my airspace at all. Not, as an impartial observer might think, because you are like concentrated evil to me. Rather it’s because we had so much potential for greatness, not necessarily as a couple but in a partnership, that it pains me to know that we will never be able to work together for ridiculously lofty goals. You have a million ideas but they lack substance; I have the substance but not the drive. Truth be told I guess I need you more than you will ever need me and that’s something I simply can not accept.

Be that as it may I want you to remember one thing: for the record, on that gloriously sunny San Francisco day, on that hillside, you in that sweater and me in my cowboy boots and hat, your hair brown streamers in the wind, on that hillside, on that day, you leaned back into me.

Think of all the trouble it would have saved if you’d have just stayed where you were.

40 years ago this very second

"Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed."

A few hours and one grooved boot print later, Neil Armstrong creates a record that will be in the books forever.

Never has 160kb or memory taken us so far.

Nowhere man

Bakerloo line. 9:15AM and already the tube is brutally hot. I'm sitting in the last seat of the last car. Across from me is a pretty rough looking dude sprawled over two seats. I have my earplugs in and am doing my best to ignore the existence of the universe.

The doors open, people get on, the doors close. Our carriage fills up rapidly with each passing stop; there are only two seats remaining- one next to me and one next to the transient guy. A fairly hot blond gets on, looks at the empty seat next to me; looks at the empty seat next to my friend across the way, looks at us both and sits down next to him.

More people crowd on and still no one sits next to me. I squeeze up against the bulkhead and try and look friendly- no one even glances at my seat. At one point I have people standing in front of me but no one will sit down.

At this point I would like to say something like, "and then I noticed that there was a huge mound of melting ice cream on the seat next to me" but that wasn't the case. The seat was fine, padded and inviting.

It made me think of Neil Gaiman's book Neverwhere in which the characters who have dropped out and fallen through the cracks of society live in a shadow world which runs alongside the real. They were there, just outside the edge of our vision, standing behind us in the Post Office queue, next to us as we walk home from the pub, late, cold under the yellow streetlight.

There I was, one of them, the forgotten, the misplaced, the ignored. Somebody else's problem- taking up space, two spaces in fact, but not a presence in any tangible sense. Only a vague perception behind the eyes of "no, not there, that seat is not vacant but I can't really tell why."

Edgeware Road. Baker Street. Oxford Circus. On and off go the businessmen, the shop assistants, the lads in their football colours; I sit in my private state of mind and watch from a very great distance.

Charing Cross, my stop, I stand and knock a woman with my bag. "Sorry" I say. She looks up at me and says, "no problem" and goes back to reading her book. I step off the train feeling much relieved.

This makes me happy

This has been a really crappy day

Which has capped a really crappy week.

I need to lift my spirits but all I can seem to do is sit at work and hit "Stumble."

What's my motivation? Oh yeah, I don't have any.

That's sorted then.

Fuck Virgin Trains

Yesterday I spent an infuriating hour on the phone with two different Virgin Train customer "service" representatives trying to change a ticket.

Yes, it was an Indian call centre. Yes, I could barely understand them. Yes, they were rude, unhelpful and could only follow their script and yes, I was hung up on when I asked to speak to a supervisor.

All I wanted the fuckers to do was abide by their own terms and conditions and change my fucking ticket for the stated £10 fee. Simple. I wasn't asking them for anything difficult, like a pleasant attitude or a blow job before I boarded. I wanted them to put me on a train which left one day later than the one I was booked on.

If anyone who works for Virgin is reading this let me first say, "I'm fucking sorry you work for such a festering pustule of a company." I'd also like to add that if you work in one of Virgin's sweatshop call centres and you were one of the two assholes who spoke to me yesterday- I hope you spend eternity having to make cold-calls to people who can shock you in the nuts every time you ring them.

This is how it played out as I went through each page of Virgin Train website with the faceless drone:

Me: "Click on Terms and Conditions and tell me what it says"

Drone: "It says you can change your ticket for £10. But no matter, because you chose an e-ticket option you can not change your ticket."

Me: "Why?"

Drone: "Because it is an e-ticket."

Me: "And that's different because?"

Drone: "Because it is an e-ticket."

Me: "That doesn't answer the question."

Drone: "..."

Me: "OK, let's go on to the next page."

Drone: "Now select the e-ticket option and click continue, see how it now says that you can not change your ticket?"

Me: "Yes. Fair enough but go to the next page where I pay for the ticket. What does it say under Terms and Conditions?"

Drone: "That you can change the ticket for £10."

Me: "And you don't see a contradiction or a problem here?"

Drone: "You can not change an e-ticket.:

Me: "Right. Let me speak with a supervisor."

Drone: "Of course."

Click.

Silence.

The really fucked up thing is that since every train line in this goddamn country has a monopoly on their routes, if I wanted to get back to London (and, unbelievably, I did) I had to use Virgin Trains. I ended up having to buy another full-fare ticket because Virgin made it impossible for me play by their rules.

It took me fifteen minutes to dig up their customer service contact details on their website and I sent them off a sternly worded complaint. Have I heard back from them? Of course not. Will I ever hear back from them? No. Never. They want me to simply give up, accept the ass fuck and move on. Well they can suck my balls. I'm filing complaints with anyone who will listen. I'm going to the press. I'll start a boycott. I'll write Richard Branson. I'll make sure every single person I meet at any business or social event knows what gutter dwelling leaches Virgin Trains are. I will not be made to look the fool.

However, in the meantime, I'll sit in the 1st class compartment, drink their drinks, eat their food and steal their little packs of biscuits. That'll show 'em.

Honestly

I'm not an atheist- not quite anyway. But I do happen to believe that most religions, with the possible exception of Buddhism (which is more of a philosophy anyway) are pure evil.

This pretty much sums it up:

http://www.irreligion.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/321.gif

Language difficulties

I've been in Manchester for the past week (Macclesfield actually) and I'm having a hard time understanding what the hell anyone is saying. I don't suffer alone: two French guys sitting at the table next to me just spent the better part of five minutes struggling to understand the waitress when she asked them what type of bread they would like.

Waitress: "Wheeeet ur bruuun bred?"

French guys: "Pardon?"

Waitress (slower and louder): "Wheeeet ur bruuun bred?"

French guys: "Wit or bruin brad?"

Waitress: "Brad. Whut type o brad do ya want?"

Me: "She wants to know if you would like white or brown bread."

French guys: "Ahh! We would like rolls."

To be fair, I had to listen pretty hard to catch her drift so it's not surprising that my French friends were struggling.

They really need to dim the lights in this place. I feel like I am sitting in pizza parlor.

I've spent the last five nights at an ancient old manner house which was converted to a hotel and golf club about two-hundred years ago which, coincidentally, was the last time the carpet was changed or indeed cleaned.

I rolled up to the place on the hottest day of the year so far (30 C) and they stuck me in an attic room at the top of five flights of stairs (no lift). Even before I opened the door I could feel the heat radiating from the door. Stepping in I was slapped back by stale, furnace like, air.

I searched the walls for a thermostat, switch or leaver- anything that would activate whatever passed for air conditioning at the time of the pile's construction. Nothing. I called the front desk, "Help! How do you turn on the AC? My shoes have melted into the carpet."

"I'm sorry sir, none of our rooms have air conditioning." Came the reply.

"You must be joking! I'm in a pottery kiln up here and the damn windows don't open more than three inches!"

"That's a security feature."

"A burglar would have to be suicidally insane to try and scale the side of this building to get to my room! You have got to get me into something cooler."

Needless to say I was told that they were full up, "But there is a fan in the closet." I was helpfully informed.

That night I slept naked on top of the bed- spread out like a starfish, fan osculating a steady stream of hot air up and down my body.

I'm going to cut this short because my lack of sleep is pushing me over the edge of exhaustion.

• The next day it started raining and hasn't stopped since
• My room temperature never dropped below the boiling point of lead
• I am now in a different, modern and altogether better hotel only a few miles down the road
• I am freezing my ass off because even though there has been no sunshine for days they've turned the heat off for the "summer"

Thank you and goodnight.

The history of the universe (abridged)

http://www.savageresearch.com/humor/historyOfTheUniverse.html