I wasn't dressed for success...

I have of late become a soup coward.

As I write this, a vat of soup purchased from 'the' Asda sits in the office's refrigerator untouched and un wanted. This soup along with another Country Vegetable soup which remains at home, was bought in order to curtail my Office based eating and thus avoiding the hit and miss qualities of the local sandwich shop, whereupon again, I have acquired a Cheese and Salad Sandwich on a Brown Roll, No Mayo and No Onion with a dash of salt and pepper.

Often the case will be that the sandwich will be most satisfactory and will be enjoyed by myself whole heartedly as i stare in to the mindless vacuums of the internet or more recently typing this pointless blog whilst on my lunch break. However more often than not the case is, I'm sad to say, the sandwich can be dull, dry and a let down. If a sandwich lets you down what can one do to?

Soup cowardice stems back to my days of call centre servitude, where i was too damned lazy to make my own sandwiches, rather I would chose to bring in a tin of Heinz soup. This proved to be a most beneficial enterprise, as not only did i avoid the unpleasantness of the Abbey Nat canteen a blatant case for false advertising- no hot food with the exception of soup and baked potatoes was ever served but I also enjoyed the rewards of a healthy diet. This lasted for some two years and as a direct result I now have a physical aversion to soup from a tin, which is why I bought a carton of soup instead. Its container isn't the issue though I've learned.

*

As you will no doubt see the blog front has been relatively quiet. i apologise most humbly.
I've lost the will to write the usual self-obsessed-narcissistic-dull-anecdotal drivel for a while. Not only that, but contrary to my initial intentions of starting this, people are actually reading it. This has ruined quite a large part of my social interaction as when meeting with co-horts and acquaintances, they already know what I've been doing. Also, the main vex in my life- this dumb ass job, is keeping me relatively busy at the moment. That doesn't mean I'm happy with it by any stretch of the imagination, rather I'm too busy to moan about my station as the office dog’s body.

You will also no doubt have deduced that I didn't win the 'Birds in the City' Design contest, and it didn't really bother me, although the £££ would have been nice. It was a pleasant night out. I was reliably informed that we must be there for 7pm- but after sending them a begging email I was instructed that as long as i got there before 7.30 then I'd be okay. Lisa, bless her, had 10 minutes to get ready from her arrival from another busy and highly strenuous day at work. When we got there I regressed. I was given a red sticker indicating to anyone who cared that I was intact an artist. Great. After a few simple "what's your name" type questions of which i looked totally bemused and embarrassed, it was upstairs where Lisa pointed out where my two designs were located. Cool.
If you have never been to Microzone then you're not missing much. Choc full with a variety of miscellaneous modern antiquities (can you have a modern antiquity?) for cretins with too much cash who would be suggestible enough to buy anything. i mean, would you really pay £650 for a old reconditioned TV, stylized a kitsch Krraftwork-esque manner? I didn't think so.
But hey, the drinks were free. Also, we weren't best pleased that people were still wondering in at 8.15 and they hadn't, as i had previously been told, closed and locked the doors a 7.30 sharp. Liars.

After the wait for the awards whereupon we spoke to no one except the guy pouring the drinks, the tedious awards were given out along with the customary pointless speeches. Once this had had come to an end and the organisers had slapped their own backs enough, we decided a few ales would be the right thing to do considering…

After a relatively uneventful drink in O'Neils*, we decided to frequent the good ole Bar Ca Va. The Tequila bar.
It hadn't changed at all and it was still a hang out for students and the like. As no seats were available we stood by the bar reminiscing about the many ridiculously daft nights we'd had in there. Lisa and I both wanted to sit though and we spotted a sofa near by that looked vacant and it was proposed that we take rest on them. I happened to note that there was several coats on it though and therefore took up the high moral ground that we shouldn't sit there. Lisa disagreed, and observed that the coats' owners were on the nearby computer pub quiz machine. I suggested that if there time exceeded 15 minutes on this game then, under my rules, we could sit there.

We stood for the remainder of the night.

I decided that we should take our chances on the quiz machine and put in several good attempts to win some money. We were let down by chance and the fact some student shouted the wrong answer out when we were stuck. He immediately apologised, and surprisingly I wasn't pissed off with him. This guy was about 19 and was wearing two polo shirts- TWO. That's two collars! Anyhow, he and his oafish co-hort decided to have a bez at the game after we decided that £7 was enough to waste on it. These guys were terrible. REALLY terrible. It's multiple guess- so you've at least got a one in three chance of guessing the correct answer. In scenes of much embarrassment, they asked for help on several occasions- for the love of God they didn’t know that 'Revolver' was a Beatles album! They also were unaware that the Oscars’ ceremony is held in L.A - not New York as the oaf incorrectly guessed. "How was I supposed to know that?" he said in his wide boy cock-er-nee accent. For a very short while, I basked in the glory of superiority.

On our departure and the customary visit to the toilet, I was greeted by the kid with two polo shirts mid flow at the urinal. I was acknowledged with a "waaaahaay". Thanks. Not wishing to stand next to him whilst I did my business I chose the option and safety of the cubicle-and whilst I pissed I stared upon the wall which featured my first dose of graphitti, enthusiastically scratching the would-be band name "Vasco-De-Gama" amongst the various gentlemen’s and football allegiances already showing.

Whist I did my 'shake', the loud and cacophonic sound of very poor working pipes reverberated in the small restroom. Over this din, I hear two shirts say something to me regarding the noise and I shouted -"It's not the pipes, its my prostate playing up" Laughing to myself whilst I zipped up my fly. I walked out of the cubicle and was greeted by three equally chinless student looking at me in a confused manner, with my mate two shirts no where to be seen. Bugger. I comforted myself that they wouldn't have got the joke anyway.
I explained this to Lisa upon my return from the bog and she just rolled her eyes.

The rest of the weekend has been somewhat of a blur, and a busy one at that. Safe to say that I’ll forgo the usually ramblings as I’ve hawked on enough already, but there was some excellent news…

BACON MOMENT!
Should you have read this attempt of a blog for sometime you may recall that Lisa and I have been in dispute over the definition of the term ‘The Bacon Incident’ and I was waiting for a new bacon related episode in order to re-define the term. However in a stroke of genius Lisa reinvented the whole concept.

As it has been mighty cold in our flat, and I’d had enough, I dug out Lisa’s trusty hot water bottle and proceeded to warm the bed for Lisa with it. She was most appreciative of this gesture. The next day, when in defence of yet another careless or fool hardy action on my part, as usual I brought up the list of good things I’ve done of late. I recalled the Hot Water Bottle gesture, and Lisa said ; “it was hardly a bacon moment” and thus a new phase was coined. Kudos! It didn’t stop there, as the next day she coined the phrase “bullambling” in reference to the incessant nonsense that I was spouting. Her explanation was “…a cross between bullshit and rambling”.
I really, really liked this phrase, but was jealous that it was Lisa who came up with it.



* In O’Neil’s whilst waiting for the barmaid’s attention I happened to over hear a chap of about 30+ nervously talking to a girl. My guess was that it was obviously a firs date and he had no other conversation except talking about O’Neill’s, about how good/rough/great/terrible it was, contradicting himself several times, yes folks he was bullambling. When I turned around and saw to whom he was talking to it made sense. She was hideous…Homer style shudder…

not really an incident but it did make me laugh inside hence my first footnote!
Woot!