OK chaps and chapesses. Here is a story I started writing a while back. Just found it on an old PC. There is another as well that I shall post soon. I am tempted to carry on with one of them. In the same vain as the insane number of inane TV programmes that beg us to vote on their outcome I am allowing you; the reader to decide via the wonderful tool of democracy which you'd like me to carry on with...
Not totally sure how the world of blogging allows you to vote, but if you really want it you'll find a way!
1. Another day, another dollop.
It was all very well documented. Even the most superficially minded 17 year old student could manage these set tasks. But, Al, this morning was struggling to remember the intricate details regarding the opening of the café. Tuesday mornings always proved a problem. Tuesday mornings in Watford were especially a problem. Having smoked 40 cigarettes the day before and a similar amount of alcohol units consumed confrontation with the order of propriety preparation was inevitable.
Nothing worked. The world was out of balance. How could Al even begin to consider ensuring that the café’s over-priced food was fit for service, being within the government guidelines when the land surrounding him had been torn from its moorings and left floating queasily, undulating. The need to ensure that the precise science of coffee making to provide skinny, Italian-sounding beverages dusted with a whisper of cocoa so adored by people who commute to work by train was not a priority to a man whose unshaven appearance was bound to attract unwanted attention from middle management.
“Forget to shave this morning, Al?”
Al hadn’t forgotten to shave this morning. Far from it. He had taken much consideration of the factor of wanted hair removal. He had reached the point of being all lathered up and raring to go, but decided that this emerging beard was a good one. It had a more realistic beard approach to it. The sort of beard that was symmetrical, showing the world that OK, who cares if Al still worked in the same job he had at university, this was a beard of a man who could be quite at home in the civil service.
Saying nothing would not suffice, but speaking would illustrate that Al was not firing on all cylinders. “Yeah”.
That should do, keep all parties happy. Dignified the middle manager with a response but held close the true nature of Al’s condition.
Sylvia edged passed. Al withdrew his stomach from her direction of passage. An unwanted act of CO2 expulsion from his lungs struck Sylvia as she went passed. Al loved Sylvia, she was hot. She was one of those ballsy, mid twenties girls from a former-soviet country. Her knowledge of English was poor, but her grasp of the British way to avoid embarrassment by keeping mum always made her more interesting. She would say anything to anyone. She didn’t find black people attractive. Fair enough, Al hated gingers. But it was the situations that seemed to trigger Sylvia into action. ‘I don’t like black people’, shot from her emotionless face in the direction of a black man in the queue. That’s why Al liked her. There was no maliciousness in her comments, just the lacking of a social grace that made her often inappropriate choice of nouns and adjectives so amusing.
“Al, you smell of alcohol”.
She was certainly consistent
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
2. Coffee and Cigarettes... The Watford Observer.
Coffee 1
I sat alone with a lightly pasteurised mango and passion fruit branded drink and a mint-tea. This was a home from home for me, sitting amongst friends all rushing around to please the people lucky enough to have weekends to free to have a coffee. I was the other side of the counter today. I was the envy of all those who did not want to be here.
Fuck she was lovely. I wanted her. This situation should’ve been easy. She smiled and threw, with great confidence the opening to a conversation in my direction. ‘Hello’.
Caught in the beauty of her accent and the sheer poetry of her language I proceeded with ill-fated fearlessness to counter her interest. I replied in a manner that was not language, not a form of communication. I might as well have just sneezed on her. Actually, that would’ve been better. At least I could perform an appropriate apology for that action. I could offer a tissue, a wipe or anything to clean up the mucus. I couldn’t apologise for being utterly useless. That would make me even more the Hugh Grant that I didn’t want to be - this time.
I turned away, smiling. Walked towards my table. I sneezed. Some unassuming customer’s cream Danimac was lightly drizzled upon. Never mind.
All the wrong doings of the world can be contemplated and solutions offered on a day when all you drink is coffee. You can do the same on beer as well, but everybody becomes too vocal and your point becomes increasingly feeble in a furore of Fosters and confused in a compendium of Kronenburg. Besides, I was on my own, so coffee it had to be; Society would frown. Plus, it was 9am and the pubs were shut. Cockayne. I was here, a state of idleness that could only be created with a latte of this nature. This wasn’t decaf, it wasn’t skinny, it had not the faintest whisper of a cocoa dusting, it was a latte. It was no more difficult to make than the 45 the barista had to make beforehand. Everything was in a state of equilibrium.
This was to be my day of coffee and fags, a chance for a person who is not at all sure of how they are meant to fit into this world to try and make sense of the maelstrom spiralling around him. I knocked back the last of my latte with the conviction of a cowboy throwing back one last whiskey for the road. I ordered another latte. The Polish Goddess stood like a statue - of a Goddess… It was not because she was standing still, (even though she was) or that she was made of stone (although my heart was slowing to a point where you’d have to drill pretty fucking hard to draw any blood from it). Or maybe that was time slowing. Maybe that’s the power of Loreal making her hair dance like a cobra enticed from its basket. Maybe it was the Herbal Essences throwing about my most carnal desires to the point of screaming in ecstasy.
“I’ll have what he’s having” Brigadier Berghaus commanded as the arrival latte broke my concentration. He was a man in his 50s, no different to any of the other patrons this morning except that he was standing next to me in the queue…
Coffee 1
I sat alone with a lightly pasteurised mango and passion fruit branded drink and a mint-tea. This was a home from home for me, sitting amongst friends all rushing around to please the people lucky enough to have weekends to free to have a coffee. I was the other side of the counter today. I was the envy of all those who did not want to be here.
Fuck she was lovely. I wanted her. This situation should’ve been easy. She smiled and threw, with great confidence the opening to a conversation in my direction. ‘Hello’.
Caught in the beauty of her accent and the sheer poetry of her language I proceeded with ill-fated fearlessness to counter her interest. I replied in a manner that was not language, not a form of communication. I might as well have just sneezed on her. Actually, that would’ve been better. At least I could perform an appropriate apology for that action. I could offer a tissue, a wipe or anything to clean up the mucus. I couldn’t apologise for being utterly useless. That would make me even more the Hugh Grant that I didn’t want to be - this time.
I turned away, smiling. Walked towards my table. I sneezed. Some unassuming customer’s cream Danimac was lightly drizzled upon. Never mind.
All the wrong doings of the world can be contemplated and solutions offered on a day when all you drink is coffee. You can do the same on beer as well, but everybody becomes too vocal and your point becomes increasingly feeble in a furore of Fosters and confused in a compendium of Kronenburg. Besides, I was on my own, so coffee it had to be; Society would frown. Plus, it was 9am and the pubs were shut. Cockayne. I was here, a state of idleness that could only be created with a latte of this nature. This wasn’t decaf, it wasn’t skinny, it had not the faintest whisper of a cocoa dusting, it was a latte. It was no more difficult to make than the 45 the barista had to make beforehand. Everything was in a state of equilibrium.
This was to be my day of coffee and fags, a chance for a person who is not at all sure of how they are meant to fit into this world to try and make sense of the maelstrom spiralling around him. I knocked back the last of my latte with the conviction of a cowboy throwing back one last whiskey for the road. I ordered another latte. The Polish Goddess stood like a statue - of a Goddess… It was not because she was standing still, (even though she was) or that she was made of stone (although my heart was slowing to a point where you’d have to drill pretty fucking hard to draw any blood from it). Or maybe that was time slowing. Maybe that’s the power of Loreal making her hair dance like a cobra enticed from its basket. Maybe it was the Herbal Essences throwing about my most carnal desires to the point of screaming in ecstasy.
“I’ll have what he’s having” Brigadier Berghaus commanded as the arrival latte broke my concentration. He was a man in his 50s, no different to any of the other patrons this morning except that he was standing next to me in the queue…
Watford til I die.. Or at least until it Herts.
You know why you don't see that many ginger people in hot climates?
Yes, they are not allowed in. Something to do with genetic purity.
So as I sit in a none too dissimilar way to Anne Frank typing on my laptop evading those pesky Gestapo, I think the weather we enjoy in Britain is actually pretty good.
OK, it rains. Sometimes it rains in a fashion that animals do start gathering themselves in to pairs and await the arrival of some sort of ark.
(Except the fish as they have a more luxurious, tiered 'multi storey carp-ark')
Digression is the better form of valour here I guess... Anyway, so it rains. We had snow. There was a day last summer when I wore a Tshirt. All good, yes? For me, yes.
I understand it would be shit if it rained everyday just like it would be shit if it blazed down anti-ginger rays all the time. Balance is good, a bit of give and take, ying yang, ebb and flow, Ant and Dec etc.
So why does stuff look so much more miserable when it rains? Watford looks crap. A huge concrete turd steaming with chavs and cocksuckers moaning that Magaluf last year was much better. GO BACK THERE. I don't hate Watford. There are some decent people here, most notably me. But this town has a real problem when even the die-hard fans who like it can't wait to jump on an EasyJet and bugger off to somewhere else where they can slash up, mash up and get banged up at the cost of another tax payer.
To be honest there are a few pieces of corn in this turd of a town; we have a canal.. Like Birmingham. We have a thriving night scene, like Southend. Yes, amazing a real gem of a town left totally out of the tourist route. A quiet retreat, a quintessentially English town a town untouched by the failings of all the governments past and present? No. It's just shit.
The most interesting aspect of it is the weather. Ginger-friendly weather.
Yes, they are not allowed in. Something to do with genetic purity.
So as I sit in a none too dissimilar way to Anne Frank typing on my laptop evading those pesky Gestapo, I think the weather we enjoy in Britain is actually pretty good.
OK, it rains. Sometimes it rains in a fashion that animals do start gathering themselves in to pairs and await the arrival of some sort of ark.
(Except the fish as they have a more luxurious, tiered 'multi storey carp-ark')
Digression is the better form of valour here I guess... Anyway, so it rains. We had snow. There was a day last summer when I wore a Tshirt. All good, yes? For me, yes.
I understand it would be shit if it rained everyday just like it would be shit if it blazed down anti-ginger rays all the time. Balance is good, a bit of give and take, ying yang, ebb and flow, Ant and Dec etc.
So why does stuff look so much more miserable when it rains? Watford looks crap. A huge concrete turd steaming with chavs and cocksuckers moaning that Magaluf last year was much better. GO BACK THERE. I don't hate Watford. There are some decent people here, most notably me. But this town has a real problem when even the die-hard fans who like it can't wait to jump on an EasyJet and bugger off to somewhere else where they can slash up, mash up and get banged up at the cost of another tax payer.
To be honest there are a few pieces of corn in this turd of a town; we have a canal.. Like Birmingham. We have a thriving night scene, like Southend. Yes, amazing a real gem of a town left totally out of the tourist route. A quiet retreat, a quintessentially English town a town untouched by the failings of all the governments past and present? No. It's just shit.
The most interesting aspect of it is the weather. Ginger-friendly weather.
Welcome!
And Hello, good morning and g'day.
So here is where it all shall happen. I am not entirely sure what I am going to write about today, tomorrow or yesterday but it will be a window looking out to the world and as such a window looking back into my eyes, through the optical bits and back up into my brain.
It may be funny, it might make you cry. All that is good. As long as it makes you feel something.
'And. Here. We. Go...'
So here is where it all shall happen. I am not entirely sure what I am going to write about today, tomorrow or yesterday but it will be a window looking out to the world and as such a window looking back into my eyes, through the optical bits and back up into my brain.
It may be funny, it might make you cry. All that is good. As long as it makes you feel something.
'And. Here. We. Go...'
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