Pynchon

What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?

What I am not doing is fretting about arsehole behaviour over the weekend. It was a bad couple of days. I am not proud of any of it. Gone. In the past. Fuck it.

I was glad to go back to work today! Now, that is bad.

I had an email sent to me. It was from a problem that had been logged by the Internal Helpdesk of one of our customers. This is what the email said, including creative spelling.

"systm not working. was working last week. printr used to do al of it, but duzn't anymore. shold be more coming out. plse investigate urgntly."

That was it. Crap, basically.

I replied to the email, thus.

"What has been logged on this ticket is meaningless drivel. We, at The Corporation, cannot understand two words of it. Please advise the exact problem you are experiencing so that we can progress the issue."

Later, when news got around and hilarity ensued, Lorraine, as my manager, was sent to tell me off. I kept an admirably straight face. I am sorry to be a trouble to her.

Happy days.

Labels: The Corporation, Work

On Thursday evening I outlined roughly to Lorraine what had happened at lunchtime that day. Lorraine likes injustice even less than I do and basically said that she would now have to do something because otherwise nobody else would.

Obviously the rest of this is second hand because I was not party to everything that happened re. John after Thursday night.

On Friday Lorraine talked (informally) with everybody who was at the table including Phil. Phil said that sometimes the Rodent (I like that nickname) could be "A little strong", but that he (Phil) did not want to complain because he didn't want to get anybody into trouble. Another guy said that he was sure that the Rodent "Didn't mean anything" and that I was making too much of what he said. A couple of other people said that the Rodent was "Out of order" and that he "Doesn't speak to anybody else like that."

It was enough for Lorraine.

After talking to Phil's manager, who admitted that Phil was not the kind of guy who would stand up for himself and would let himself be walked all over for the sake of a quiet life, Lorraine went and talked to the Rodent's manager. Guess what the Rodent's manager's reaction was?

"We've had other complaints. He's got an attitude problem. I'll talk to him."

And so today, other than the odd grunt, not a word was spoken by the Rodent. I am surprised he didn't choose to sit at another table. There was the odd hateful glance in my direction, but I can live with that. He knows that I was the one who got this started. I am now waiting for him to get me on my own and to try to give me some lip. I hope he does. I will invite him to attempt sexual congress with himself.

Like John I also do not like making enemies, but if the Rodent wants a war, he will get one. Anyway, what can he do to me? The beauty of living with the Boss (Lorraine) is that I can, mostly, say what I like and, maybe, care a little less about the consequences.

I hate fucking bullies. Pathetic asswipe.

Labels: Work

How strange. The last couple of comments received on the blog did not send an automatic email to my email address, but the comment I just put on did send an email.

Hmm... Sorry for ignoring anybody. I wasn't really.

I will write about "August Rush" tomorrow. I know what I want to say, but I have kind of run out of time. I promised Lorraine that I would go into work with her early tomorrow and I should have been in bed an hour ago.

Re. Work, things are afoot. Good things, despite my best efforts to sabotage them.

Next time.

Labels: Fucking Blogger, Work

"The 39 Steps". The Criterion Theatre. Evening performance. 25th August 2007.



It's funny how these things work out.

About a month ago, on one lazy Saturday afternoon, I found myself watching Hitchcock's 1935 movie version of "The 39 Steps". I cannot be bothered to look up the post at this exact moment, but I think I remember writing that I thought that "The 39 Steps" was a little bit old and a little bit creaky, but that the script still sparkled and probably would still work as a modern film with modern production values.

Did I mention at the time that I thought "The 39 Steps" was also prime material for a parody of an old fashioned British thriller, featuring a frowning hero well versed in the art of the stiff upper lip? I don't think that I did, but I thought it at the time. (I have resisted the temptation to adjust the previous post. Revisionism of history is so easy when blogging, isn't it?)

For a while now the Arts pullout in Saturday's edition of "The Independent" has had the stage version of "The 39 Steps" as one of the best 5 West End shows in London, and rightly so. "The 39 Steps" is a riotous, energetic and glorious piss take of Hitchcock's movie.

"The 39 Steps" features 4 actors playing 139 roles. A nearly empty stage. Clever props (packing cases, chairs, a window frame, a door frame, a toy train) and lighting. With those ingredients, plus great performances, "The 39 Steps" manages to duplicate the entire original movie.

I thought "The 39 Steps" was wonderful. Absolutely brilliant and a great tribute to the original film. Really funny and well worthy of the Olivier award it picked up for best comedy last year.

********

No more reviews until the weekend.

You're relieved....? I'm knackered. It's hard work writing, when you actually have nothing to write and are crap at it anyway.

Oh, by the way. I forgot to mention it. The Corporation has decided to finally scrap the product that I work on.

Worry? Me? No sweat. Apparently I still have a job. I don't know how that happened, but I suspect that the photos I have of the new M.D. with a mountain goat might have something to do with my delayed departure.

Lorraine is dragging me along with her tomorrow to see her ex-Boss' new baby. (Ex-Boss being Bobby Blue who is married to the lovely Lana with the torquoise eyes. I think I may have mentioned Lana before.) I may be here to post, or I may not. Either way, I will be back on Saturday.

Have a good weekend, all.

Labels: Plays, The Corporation, Work

IT people of a sensitive nature, who are familiar with the UNIX operating system, are advised to look away now.

Gay Harry, the oldest and most experienced UNIX programmer at The Company, today logged onto a major customer's UNIX system as root and did the following:

cd /
rm -rf *

The command (delete everything in the current directory and beneath the current directory) only ran for 20 seconds before Gay Harry broke into it but, Hey! How long does it take to detonate an atom bomb?

When Gay Harry came over to me he was as white as a sheet, was sweating and his eyes were on stalks. I thought he was having another heart attack. (Gay Harry had a heart attack in the office a couple of years ago. It was a very shocking thing to witness. A first aider, a very disagreeable but brilliant programmer named Norman Grizzly, saved Gay Harry's life that day. I'm convinced of it.)

"John. I think I've fucked up."

Er... Yes.

My first thought. No problem. We can restore the whole of the system to last night's backup.

Er... No we can't. The customer had logged a call this morning letting us know that their backup had not worked since last Thursday. They had watched it fail, day after day after day, and had only bothered to tell us today.

Oh, shit! Then I think I shit myself.

I told Gay Harry to go for a walk and then I told Salvador Full, the product Boss, what had happened. He was remarkably calm.

"Did you do it?"

"No."

"Who did it?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

Shit.

"Gay Harry. It was an accident."

There was a bit of chat about what Gay Harry had intended to do, which was kosher enough, and then Salvador shrugged his shoulders and said the happy phrase, "It's a tech problem now, isn't it? Give it to them. Tell Harry not to worry."

I kissed him on both cheeks and flung the problem on Terry Pig's desk.

Long story short, Terry is booked on an early plane tomorrow. The customer is abroad and Terry needs to be on site to rebuild their UNIX system. The data is fucked though.

I'm going to have a lie down. It's been a long day.

Labels: Computers, Stress, Work

Anything happening here?

No. Not really.

But the police were at work today! Kind of exciting.

Bit late now. Later.

Labels: Block, Work

Today I have been working on the slowest NT server of all time.

And this evening I played Agony Aunt for a friend.

Oh, yes. It is my Nephew's 11th birthday tomorrow.

I think that just about covers it.

Labels: Advice, Family, Work

Generally it has been a quiet day.

I went back to work this morning, but managed to get nothing concrete done until the afternoon. I forgot that I was booked onto some bullshit course from 9am, so that took up the whole of the morning. (The Company is pushing to get all it's support employees accredited in IT Service Management, and I am one of the guinea pigs. It is a beautiful fantasy, but it ain't gonna happen without an almighty pulling up of The Company's socks. Total waste of money. They could have given me a pay rise.)

This afternoon I read all the emails that had accumulated in my inbox during my 5 days off. There were hundreds and hundreds of the fuckers. Day after day I drown in a blizzard of correspondence. It's ludicrous and ridiculous and I have been quite vocal about the situation. I reckon that less than 5% of the emails are relevant to what I do. I'm not the only one who thinks that.

Then, finally, Tina Noir gave me a couple of hours worth of training on one aspect of supporting the new product. She was thorough. She demonstrated it carefully. I made good notes. I tried it for myself. She corrected some misunderstandings. It was good.

Home time. Freddie Podge gave me a lift. (Lorraine was on mornings and had already left.)Freddie said how much he liked "28 Weeks Later". I growled at him, but admitted that some of it was really good. Freddie is an Albion fan and is off to the Wembley on Monday for the play off final. I hope Albion win. We need more of the Midlands teams in the Premiership. Also 6 easy points for us next season. Ha ha ha!

This evening we had mackerel, peas, onions and mash, followed by most of a large bar of chocolate. I felt quite sick when I was doing the washing up, or was it the act of doing the washing up that made me feel sick?

Now I'm here.

Ho hum.

I know. I think I will copy some music onto my MP3 player. I have just obtained "A Carnival Of Hits", which is a compilation of the best of the Seekers, and "All Over The Place", which was the first album by the Bangles. The latter was very difficult to get hold of. I eventually managed to get hold of it via the Vinyl Tap website. Very good site. Very fast service. To be honest, I did pay a little over the odds to obtain it, but I think it will be worth it.

Labels: Music, The Company, Work

At the bus stop this morning Red turned up with a man. The two of them were obviously a couple. I could tell from the body language. Red sat with her back to the road, legs slightly apart, while he leaned in towards her. They were intent on each other, but she is a nice girl and nodded "hello" to me.

Red wore black pumps, blue pinstripe trousers, white frilly blouse, some kind of red checked waistcoat, purple jacket and white beads. Her hair was tied back with elastic bands in a ponytail. She was carrying a big funky brown bag, attached to which was a keyring with the name "Jenny" written on it.

(Ah... Watson. I deduct that her name is Jenny Red, then.)
(Ah... Holmes. You are such a twat.)

The fashionistas might have something to say about the colour coordination of the outfit, but knowing nothing about fashion I thought that Red looked a million dollars. A true transformation from how she presented herself before Wednesday, 13th September 2006. (Look up the date, if you are interested.)

Red has kept it up. She looked happy. Things can change.

My question is this.

Does the fact that I went out this morning, walked into a situation, thought it was interesting, decided that I wanted to remember everything (clothes, colours, etc.), mentally noted it, came back here hours later, sat down and wrote it all up, make me a voyeur?

I think the above little sketch was fairly innocent stuff, but I am becoming aware that I don't know when to stop. Do I, under the mask of anonymity, have the right to write about anything that I like? I'm not sure that I do. Would Red want me telling the world about her?

I'm not sure about this Blogging thing at all, anymore. Have I given away everything about myself (except for my real name, although some of you know what that is) for the sake of entertainment? Am I no better than someone like Kerry Katona or Elton John, who are always willing to talk about their latest drug/booze/sex addiction? Have they no shame? Don't they know what a private life is? Don't I know what a private life is? Don't I care about exposing other people's private lives to the world at large?

Lorraine would leave me tomorrow if she ever found out some of the things that I have written about her.

I just realised why I started the blog. I wanted to tell it how it is. How it is to me, at least. Anonymously. No comebacks. That is all ruined when you start to build personal relationships with people you have met over the Internet. At that point the mechanics of the blog changes. It becomes more of a message board. You start to have to deal with personal embaressment. Some of these people have met you and they know you.

Maybe I should never have started leaving comments on other blogs? Maybe I should never have reached out to people?

Confused post. Sorry.

It's a hurting time. Lorraine and I had our big chat a couple of nights ago. It has cleared the air, but it was a painful experience for both of us. I'm still trying to put together in my head exactly what was said, because I want it to be accurate when I finally write it up. It won't be tonight.

At work Lorraine has put her foot down with me, for my own good, and forced me to relinquish control of supporting the old product. After a handover tomorrow to the last of the programmers dealing with the old product (Hi there Gay Harry, of the luxurious moustache!), I will be dealing with the new product. She said that it will potentially secure my position during the uproar to come. She may well be right.

I think that Lorraine still cares.

Labels: Bloggers, Thoughts, Work

Sore throat? Gone.
Drowsiness? Gone.
Cough? Still there. Still teeth shattering.
Sniffles? Still there, but reduced somewhat.

A marked improvement, methinks. I think that I will celebrate my good health tomorrow by going to see a movie. (Probably "Das Leben der Anderen" or "The Lives Of Others".) You know, something that I would never do.

At work I am now at a new desk. I am sitting between Tom Ninety and Ginger Foghorn. The intention is that as the time I spend on the old product gets less and less (yeah, right...), I will start to learn and support the new product. Tom and Ginger will be there to advise me. Tom is a sarcastic bugger, but so am I (I was only joking fuff), so we will be fine. But Ginger.... Oh dear...

Ginger is loud. So loud. She is opinionated. (Under the old manager we used to have a team meeting every Thursday. Some of us would play a game whereby we would put bets on how many times Ginger uttered the word "I". The record was 107 times in a two hour meeting. What's that? 53.5 times in an hour? Good Lord. I couldn't believe it when it happened.) She is a relentless self publicist. (Aren't all of us who have blogs?) She thinks she is fantastic. She thinks that she is better analyst than Lorraine (bollocks!), is crucially important to The Company and that the rest of us are just obstacles to her rise up The Company ladder. She is Wonder Woman!

I'm sure that she loves me as well.

I think that Lorraine put me next to Ginger to piss Ginger off. Lorraine knows that I am going to get maximum fun out of winding her up.

Or maybe Lorraine did it to piss me off...?

No. Can't be. Can it?

Something else that is also going to piss Ginger off is that I have been given a new PC. I didn't actually ask for a new PC, and there were probably other candidates (e.g. Ginger) who had a more pressing need than myself to get a new PC, but I'm not going to complain. The new PC is a hundred times better than the old piece of shit I have worked on for the last 5 years.

I spent a happy couple of hours this morning installing things on the PC that the mass brain of the Internal Infrastructure Team forgot to do. You know the kind of thing. Printers. Help Desk software. Modem...

Ooops. Got to go. The new series of "Peep Show" starts in 18 minutes. Genius.

Labels: Illness, The Company, Work

I met a Girl this evening. Her name was Lisabeth.

By about 4pm this afternoon the weather in Birmingham started getting really bad, so The Company started letting people go home early. Being a saint I elected to stay, as I wasn't limited to options to get home (one bus doesn't turn up, another will at some point), but at 5pm I had had enough and left.

The bus shelter was overflowing with people. I reckon there must have been 20 people in the bus shelter and 10 people outside. I squeezed in from one end of the bus shelter and a Girl, I'd seen before many times as she gets the same bus as me, squeezed in after me. We shared a nod.

A bus came. 30 people got on. The Girl and I looked at each other. We were alone in the bus shelter.

"That's better", she said.

"Sure is", I said.

And we started talking. It was half an hour before our bus came. When we got on (ladies first, obviously) we went to the top deck, sat together and carried on talking. You can learn a lot in 2 hours.

Her name is Lisabeth. She comes from Austria. She has a lovely accent. She speaks perfect English. She studied English at school, but said that her spoken English improved dramatically once she started to work in the UK. She sometimes has trouble understanding the Irish and Scottish accent, but has no problem with the full blown Brummie accent. She works as a Credit Controller, not far from where I work. She likes her job. She has lived in London and Glasgow, but likes Birmingham better. She has worked all over Europe, but settled in the UK 6 years ago. She has a boyfriend, who she hardly sees because of the hours that both of them work. She seemed to be very smart.

She is mid 20's, shorter than me, dark haired, has green/grey eyes, perfect teeth and is curvy and pretty. Her hair was wet from the snow and I suggested that she invest in a woolly hat. That made her laugh. She had some blue eye makeup on, but it had run a little because of the water. I had to resist the temptation to wipe it off her face with my thumb. She was wearing an amazing woollen brown coat, black boots and dark trousers.

Oh, yes. Nearly forgot. I wanted her. I wanted her very badly. I felt lightheaded and breathless. I couldn't take my eyes off her. I wanted to stroke her hair and kiss her and hold her and tell her that I loved her. I wanted to hold her hand, walk around with her and show her off to everybody. I wanted her.

I feel awful.

I know that this, whatever this is, is utter nonsense. I do not for one minute think that this is love at first sight, and that tomorrow I will be telling Lorraine that we are all over. I know that this is all about my being on my own for the week, eating badly, over tiredness because I've not been sleeping and my worries about where Lorraine and I are going. This kind of thunderbolt does not happen to me.

I miss my friend Vicky. Lisabeth looked a bit like Vicky.

I am probably coming across badly. Fuck it. This is not me in a good light, but I promised to be honest on this blog.

How am I going to face Lorraine tomorrow, when I pick her up from New Street Station? My face will betray me. It's got to.

Labels: Sex, Weather, Work

Lorraine has arrived safely. She called this evening in the middle of the "Scrubs" double bill, just to annoy me. We had a chat.

She asked if I had eaten properly. I had. She asked me if the house was OK. I said that it was. She asked me if work was OK. Work was fine, except that another member of the team, who has always believed that he should have been given Lorraine's job, decided that in Lorraine's absence that he was in charge and... Ha! Ha! Ha!... decided to try to tell me what to do. Oh, how I laughed while I ripped him apart in front of everybody, because I was not in the mood to put up with such bullshit. Unprofessional of me, and thinking about it probably a bad move, but do you know what? Fuck him.

Lorraine confirmed when she was coming home. I told her I loved her. Lorraine didn't reply, probably because her Brother was in the room with her and Lorraine is not the kind of woman to display any affection to me in public.

... And that was that and it was fine.

So, just to prove that all is not misery and distress in my life (because I refuse to go anywhere near that particular fucking mindset at the moment), some New Words for 2007. Read and enjoy.

TESTICULATING - Waving your arms around and talking Bollocks.

BLAMESTORMING - Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS - The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

SALMON DAY - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to getscrewed and die.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE - The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

404 - Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.

OHNOSECOND - That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all')

BEER COMPASS - The invisible device that ensures your safe arrival home after booze, even though you're too drunk to remember where you live, how you got here, and where you've come from.

JOHNNY-NO-STARS - A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The 'no-stars' comes from the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wear to show their level of training.

MYSTERY BUS - The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you're in the toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in.

MYSTERY TAXI - The taxi that arrives at your place on Saturday morning before you wake up, whisks away the stunner you slept with, and leaves a 10-Pinter in your bed instead.

Labels: Humour, Lorraine, Television, Work

I was going to write about the Staff Conference.

Once a year the MD feels the need to indulge his Bill Gates/Richard Branson fantasies. He does this by means of the Staff Conference.

A venue is hired that is far too big for the purpose. A multi-media/corporate event company is hired to give the Staff Conference a glossy sheen; all big screens, graphics, fancy lighting and music. All holiday is cancelled, as attendance is compulsory (one guy on Lorraine's team had the day off with a migraine - good man; I might try that next year). The Company closes down for the afternoon, with the exception of a few skeleton staff (people fight to be one of the skeleton staff) and we all normally sit in abject boredom to hear the plan for the new year. It's always the same.

It's a bloody disgrace and a scandalous waste of money. The MD is not a big cheese. He is a crappy bit of cheddar found underneath the fridge. The Company is not a big deal. We are not Microsoft or Virgin. With the amount of redundancies that have taken place over the past two years, they could quite easily host the conference on the first floor of the building we work in. It would not be a big squeeze. The Staff Conference must cost thousands upon thousands to put on, including flying various people from the small offices we have abroad. It has already been announced that the pay review this year will be cost of living (2 to 3 percent, I reckon), but that there will be the possibility for a 3 percent bonus to be paid at the end of the year if "targets are met". Yes, we have all heard that before.

Paradoxically, I quite enjoyed myself this year. Some of the speeches were hilarious, but I did sit on my hands when the applause was being handed out.

The Human Resources boss lady hosted the event. (I like her a lot. She is a decent human being who knows everybody's name and talks to everybody.) She did the opening blurb about "change" and "evolution" and the "next step". She used various John F. Kennedy quotes and compared the MD's leadership with Kennedy (yes, I know, she did - I kid you not) and made an analogy with the position that Kennedy was in when he committed the States to get a man on the moon by 1969 (he made the speech in 1961) to The Company's position in the market place.

Utter toss.

The MD took to the stage. He knows how to give a good speech. He carried the hall, despite outrageous statements like

1. We are the market leader in our product! (No, we are not. There is another Company that is a lot bigger than us. Everybody knows who they are, but their name is never mentioned. Let's call them the Candyman Corporation. Say their name 5 times and they will appear and steal all your customers. I hear that somebody once surfed their web page and spontaneously burst into flames.)
2. Since the launch of our new product, support calls are down by 50%. (Rubbish. If anything support calls have gone up 50% since the new product has gone on the market.)
3. The old product (which is the one I support, practically on my lonesome) will be phased out by the end of the year. (Really? I don't think so. I think that they have been making that particular claim since the day I joined the company, 5 years ago.)
4. The Industry just loves our product. (Nonsense. How come we keep being threatened with legal action, have been bad mouthed publicly by big players in the Industry press and have had to change our name a couple of times because the previous names were mud?)

There were other things. I forget them. After his work of fiction of a speech, the MD handed the platform to various other speakers.

The Development Boss made a speech. He started with a sound clip of Billy Connolly, which was supposed to be a transcript of a meeting with the MD. It was full of swearing, effing and blinding and was very bad. It was terrible and not funny. Hell, I curse. I swear a lot, but I would never consider doing it at a formal meeting, from the stage, in front of a large group of people. The Development Manager came across very badly. Used car salesman. Fat, sweaty, gob shite. Smarmy git.

The Sales and Marketing Director made a speech. I could say it was bad, but that would not even begin to cover just how bad it was. He pretended that he had just could back from a trip to the future. (On the screen there was a mock up of the guy sitting in H. G. Wells' time machine.) He described the Utopian future that awaited us. Everybody was happy. Negativity was a thing of the past. He made jokes about how he did not look any older in the future...

The speech was a stinker. The speech was a catastrophe. It was a clunker. Death hung in the air over the audience. Dogs started howling in the street outside. The Pope awoke suddenly from a dream about the Anti-Christ. There was an eclipse of the sun. A two headed goat was born in a petting zoo just outside Birmingham. A Japanese bloke sitting at the back of the audience tried to kill himself. Paris Hilton had a number 1 single. Weapons of Mass Destruction were found in Tamworth.

Awful. Just awful. (I'll say one thing, though. When I got back to the office, and was telling the story of the speech, I was in tears of laughter.) I've never liked the Sales and Marketing Directory. He is a cunt of the highest order. Rude and arrogant. One day I will tell you the story of how he (and remember, this is a man with no knowledge of the computer side of the business)decided that the server room needed to be reorganised because of a customer visit and some people - better heads who should know better - decided to go with it because they didn't want to stand up to him. We ended up losing access to all of the modems for 3 days, but we had a lovely and pretty server room. I've never liked him, but the speech was that bad I felt sorry for him.

Poor bastard. A genius like Eric Morecombe would have died with that speech.

The rest of the afternoon went by in a bit of a blur. I think we were all in a state of shock. You know that I collected by 5 year service award, along with about 12 other people. When I/we were making our way to the stage they played "Superfreak" by Rick James, which is the song that M. C. Hammer based "You Can't Touch This" on. Good song, the Rick James one. There's a clip on You Tube here. I can't think why they chose it with reference to us, though.

I'm tired now. I saw "Notes On A Scandal" today, but I want to think about it a little and will write tomorrow.

Labels: Movies, Work

I am having problems. I do not have any words in my head at all. Everything is coming out stilted and forced and pretentious. I am incoherent (oh, yes I am) and I cannot explain myself very well. I don't feel I can write anything intelligent about any of the movies I have seen recently. If that continues I may as well stop the blog straight away.

I promised a quick write up of "Venus" that I saw last Sunday. I will be brief.



I thought that "Venus" was very good. I enjoyed it a lot. It starts off as broad comedy (think Old Men Behaving Badly) and becomes something much deeper and richer as it progresses.

Peter O'Toole plays a version of himself that never became a famous and lauded actor. He's an old man, in ill health, scraping a living playing minor parts on TV. He banters with old friends Leslie Phillips (who is brilliant) and Richard Griffiths. O'Toole is lively, caustic and still interested in the opposite sex, even if they are not interested in him. He is alive!

Into his life comes a teenage girl, played by Jodie Whittaker. She is the Niece of the Leslie Phillips character. Withdrawn, childlike, selfish, coarse and (hey!) vile. O'Toole falls in lust with her and pursues her - slowly. He's an old man. She doesn't want to know, but they become friends.

Things happen...

I am not at all surprised that Peter O'Toole snagged an Oscar nomination for "Venus". He might even win. On the night it will all be down to the sentimental vote of the Academy. 8 nominations in 44 years and no win? I wouldn't bet against Peter O'Toole, even though he is up against Forrest Whitaker who has won a fair few of the Best Actor awards over the past couple of months.

I must say a word or two about Jodie Whittaker, who has hardly been mentioned in any of the reviews. She is good. She grows and changes and matures as the film goes on. By the end she is a different person. It's a really great performance.

How was that? Better write up than "The Fountain" ? Maybe it was.

Earlier this week I attended a staff conference and I picked up a 5 year service award. I had told Lorraine that I might go up onto the stage as if I had won the Brit award for Best Single (you know, acting the goat), but she said that The Company would love it if I made a song and dance about it, and so I backed down. I did satisfy myself by giving it some Derek Smalls (fist punching the air in triumph) when they were taking the photo. Lorraine scowled at me. I could see her from the stage.

I consider the award a badge of shame. A testament to my own lethargy, immobility, stagnation and lack of motivation over the last half decade. In the car, on the way back to the office, I tried to open the window and chuck the rotten thing out, but Lorraine wrestled it off me. She said that I was being, and I quote, "A fucking child". Ah, she does knows me.

I want to write a bit about the staff conference, but not now. Some of what went on was hilarious. Well, it was to me.

Next post. I promise.

Labels: Block, Movies, Work

You'll forgive me if I write nothing of any consequence this evening.

I forgot that I was going to be late home from work due to the external staff seminar, and that the shopping was going to be delivered this evening, and that the new series of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" was going to start with a double bill.

What's a boy to do? No time.

I shouldn't even be here. I need my beauty sleep.

Labels: Television, Time, Work