gdk

Another week, another terrible mystery shopper report. As luck would have it, that customer who we chucked in the basement and tortured for three hours, attaching electrodes to his genitals, turned out to be the mystery shopper! How's your luck? We hardly ever do that. We got minus points, of course, though it was at least recognized that we were being 'proactive'. And he said he'd come back again.

Dave bought an 'invisible shield' for his i-phone on the internet. He actually paid money for something on the internet that's invisible. Imagine trying to complain if it didn't arrive! Are you sure it hasn't been delivered, sir? Maybe you just can't see it.

I myself have a new phone to replace the retard special that made me a laughing stock in the community (or confirmed my status in that respect.) Friends kindly bought it for me, for a reason which I am not yet prepared to divulge. And I love it! I am almost indecently fond of it, always stroking it and looking for opportunities to spend special time with it alone. It has a camera! And you can listen to the radio on it! It has catapulted me into the twenty-first century. I don't know how it works. The first text I sent, by accident, was the non-word 'gdk' to Dave. He never received it.

bad wood

I did in fact go on the Forum, by the way. The sandwiches were good and there was cake also. It was even permissible to say that they were the real reason you were there, and I know this because I did. You were even allowed to slag off Get Selling. Wait a minute, that was my idea! I lapsed into a sulky silence. Been there, done that - in fact, wasn't this whole Forum thing just a pale imitation of my blog? I did consider volunteering for one of the roles they were offering. Deputy minute-taker sounded about the level of responsibility I was seeking. But that was snapped up; and besides, after a couple of hours in the meeting, the only note I'd succeeded in taking on my improvised pad was - for some reason - the word 'chair'.

The point of the whole thing is to decide on one 'issue' to be taken forward to the MD; to be handed to him - presumably - in an envelope marked 'Fuck you'. Which makes it all rather like a competition. 'More pay and better working conditions for Forum representatives', anyone?

A woman rang the shop for a book called Essex Woods, though it transpired that the book was actually called Essex Moods. Moods, woods, apparently it was all the same to her, she still wanted it. Essex Moods, by the way, is a book of picturesque photos of Essex landscapes, not - as it should be - a collection of photographic portraits of surly chavs.

phone of blood

I have foolishly purchased a mobile phone from the internet. I only wanted a basic one, though I naturally assumed that it would be less basic than my current and very old Nokia. Not so: it is thinner, but the size of the font on the texts seems anxious to make up for that. The letters are so fat that you can only see one word at a time on the screen; or half a word, if it's a long word, like - say - 'number'. This means that you have to scroll through any messages you manage to receive one word at a time, which makes you feel like a retard, reading the words of a retard. Maybe it is intended for people who only text in emergencies: brief and non-specific cries for help. Like, for example: 'Help!'

Although I'm not sure that it has an exclamation mark.

It does have a more discreet and melodic ringtone than my old one. Not that this is necessarily appropriate. It rang the other day - discreetly, melodically - to announce, via the letting agent, that our 'nightmare of a landlady' was on her way round to the house, even though she was meant to be coming the day after. After all her ominous calls about her desperate financial situation, and her warning that 'her problem could become our problem' if we didn't get out ASAP, I anticipated carnage. I was at work, however, and could only picture the scene. Would she chain herself to the radiator? Would I return home to find her lying in a pool of blood minus her head with Ross standing over her, sword in hand?

But all she did was wander round measuring things, pick up the mail for her new business mysteriously located at this address (Suggested slogan: 'Our problem could become your problem!') and apparently not mind at all that we will indeed be leaving right at the very last minute. Because we do have a new house, not available until the end of the month, hastily secured by Dave before either Ross or I could view it. It's a bit of a contrast after a big town house: a one-room bungalow.

It is a very nice room though.

This week I look forward to a job interview at the National Blood Service. I applied for this despite never having given blood, and indeed being made rather squeamish by the very thought of it. Nevertheless, I figured that at least I won't be bored there if I'm fighting off nausea all the time. I imagine myself being shown 'the blood room', where all the blood is kept, and laughing and saying: 'But of course it isn't real!' And then they tell me, and I scream and scream...

But Nici Dawson used to work there, and she says it isn't like that. You need security clearance to get to the blood. They do demand discretion and confidentiality though. I'm great at that, as everyone knows.