the administration

Well, it begins to seem that I was right to get out of retail as the Woolworth's empire collapses. A listener to Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 show blamed 'rude and invisible staff' for their downfall, a combination which sounds quite intriguing to me. You'd have thought they'd be queueing out the door.

This week we were visited by a couple of HR people re: the restructure. We were all struggling to think of questions to ask them so as to justify their coming over to see us. I borrowed mine from Ken Bruce's 'Popmaster' quiz (conveniently on just before the meeting) but as it happened everyone else's questions (about work, boringly) took up all the time. Not wishing to suggest that the HR people didn't inspire confidence, but I had my doubts as to whether they would have been able to name three Spandau Ballet hits in the allotted time anyway.

Most of the feedback we in the admin department are going to send the new director will relate to the new job titles. Although we are clearly doing administration, that word is now forbidden, for reasons which aren't entirely clear - you'd think it would be popular these days, what with everyone (Woolworth's, MFI) going into it. We have been encouraged to send in alternative suggestions, such as 'clerical assistant', 'support services assistant', and 'supreme overlord of the cosmos' (well, you can but try). Perhaps I should go the whole hog and try and get the entire Marketing Services department renamed 'Martin Services'. There is, after all, another Martin in the office, and yet another down the hall. Everyone will be our slaves!

Although I suspect that this would be rather embarrassing in reality.

On Saturday we went to the switching on of the Christmas lights in Brentwood. They outdid themselves this year, doing the countdown to the switch-on no less than three times (twice ineffectually, and once successfully). These were prefaced by a (largely incomprehensible) speech from Gloria Hunniford and followed by perfectly audible but invisible firework display (low misty cloud occasionally turning green or red for a short time). Reassuringly, however, the true purpose of the event had not changed, and this was of course, to stage a standoff between the police and various surly youths in the freezing cold and rain. We emerged from the Slug and Lettuce later on to find a line of police (and community support officers) standing in the middle of the High Street staring down groups of huddled teenagers, who mostly looked bored and confused, as though wondering why they did this every year. They weren't the only ones.

and so on

The new job has its awkward moments. I accidentally left the office without my pass and by this simple act rendered myself unable to get back (you have to swipe it over a black box in order to achieve access). I had to wait to be let back in. I had become like a dog.

At lunch I found myself looking through the same issue of Chat I picked up a month or so ago. Luckily, there's a lot in it. It's rather like the Bible in this respect. How, for example, did I manage to miss this headline, in blazing red, on the cover? He Axed My Girl To Death - Now WE'RE Paying for His Sex Op! Well how very liberal of you. Oh no, that's the tax-paying 'we' they're using there. As for the 'sex op', that's a sex-change operation, not surgery undergone purely for sexual thrills. Though you can never really be sure in the wild world of Chat, where puppies are eaten by sofas on a regular basis.

Do I really get pleasure from reading this magazine? No, in retrospect it offends me: I must ring a national newspaper to complain. Unfortunately, they only have time for the ludicrous Ross/Brand debacle, which has now caused the Daily Mail to start a campaign to get people to refuse to pay their TV licence. One of the key figures in this was the guy who used to present One Man And His Dog (no sour grapes there, then) who complains that the BBC does not represent the countryside and that Springwatch is 'too politically-correct'. Quite how you make Springwatch politically incorrect I'm not sure. Get Bill Oddie to black up? Shoot birds as soon as soon as they emerge from the egg? But then people would complain, and refuse to pay their TV licences...

The word 'randomly' used twice here. Randomly.

Because I have suddenly discovered that I can get avant-garde London radio station Resonance loud and (fairly) clear I can now wake up to a man randomly reading out sixty questions about, mainly, birds. Like: 'What do you pretend with a wren?' And: 'What do rooks do on Sunday?'

Well that was one morning. On other occasions it might be 'madrigal hour' or a discussion about a DVD on the subject of the typeface Helvetica. It keeps you on your toes.

Not that I've neglected the mainstream. I went to see a Chinese opera. This was Monkey which, as everyone knows, is based on the Johnny Vegas PG Tips ads. It is an incredible spectacle. As a giant woollen monkey was lowered into the auditorium to an aria sung by Johnny Vegas in a tutu, and the talking chimps from the earlier adverts did martial arts moves, I could hardly contain myself.

Well alright, it was nothing like that but it was highly enjoyable. It must have been, because there were a lot of Chinese people in the audience, always the sign of a good Chinese opera. The one grave disappointment was that there were no monkeys in it. No, not one. This in spite of my constantly asking: 'Where's the monkey? Is that the monkey?' throughout, rising eventually to a screech which all but drowned out the opera, somewhat to the annoyance of my neighbours.

Mat has been round the house. When he hasn't been making himself an impromptu meal out of the leeks, duck, and black pudding his Mum randomly gave him, he has mainly been admiring the internet on his laptop. Discovering some site that tells you what the weather is like outside ('The clouds are updating!'). It's almost like old times, except now we can give him back at the end of the day.

By the way, on a Sunday rooks sit still in trees and do not carry twigs in their beaks.

restructuring

I went back to work after my week off. Amazingly it was still there. Just about: on Tuesday we had to go up to London for a meeting about the restructure. It was held at the Royal Society of Anaesthetists. Were they going to pump gas into the room to make us amenable to their suggestions? ('You're all fired!' 'Thanks...that's just... fine...') No. There was no need for gas. Nobody is losing their jobs (apart from the people who are). There is a new job in the new structure that looks suspiciously similiar to the one I've got. I've read the job description and really it's more or less the same. Apart from the burlesque dancing. But I can handle that.

The main change is in the name. The new director doesn't like the word 'administrative', so there's been a few suggestions for alternatives, some involving the word 'procurement', which makes me sound like a pimp. I objected to this, and they told me to read the job description again. So I did and had to admit that, yeah, maybe the job has changed a bit more than I initially thought...

The main thing is, even if I have to re-apply, I should still get it. I am in what they call 'limited competition' with two and a half people who are also eligible. Two of these people don't exist - they are vacant posts. Even I shouldn't have too much trouble competing with a void. But there is still the mysterious half a person. They don't specify which half - head or legs. Obviously it would be useful to know so that I could tailor my CV to fit, stressing mobility or intellectualism as the circumstances decree. But what if they have been split down the middle? It's very challenging.

Despite my predictions to the contrary, America has a new black(ish) president. Naturally, I had assumed that the Democrats' fielding of a coloured candidate whose name sounds like Osama was part of a sinister conspiracy to get the Republicans in again. Apparently not. Honestly, if you can't have faith in the entrenched racism of the American people, what is there left to believe in? A black man in the White House? It's like something out of some science fiction tale set in the futuristic year of two thousand and, er, eight. Or it's like - oh God - 24. Still, rather than admit I was wrong and celebrate, I choose to sulk, and join Right Wing commentators such as Peter Hichens and Roy 'Chubby' Brown in predicting DOOM for America, which will now lurch from bad to worse and quite possibly sink into the sea. Ocean, whatever. I don't know anything anymore.

It's alive!

During my week off I wandered around London, occasionally popping in to branches of Waterstones to accuse them of destroying my life:

ME: You killed my dreams!

ASSISTANT: That'll be £20.97, sir. Do you have a loyalty card?

ME: (Sheepishly) Yes.

I only saw one film at this year's London Film Festival, Raoul Ruiz's Nucingen Haus. Variety says it is unlikely to get a commercial release. I concur. It's an old school art-movie, late Bunuel on acid. Housemaid serenades and strokes brain of girl recently killed by girl's (dead?) sister. Hero beats (dead?) sister over head with sister's own (skeletal) leg. Sudden cut to black and white film of horse running through field... You had to admire its perversity. Behind me sat the two elderly women who always seem to be at my back at these things. Their faces I've never seen, but I've certainly heard their voices: upper-class drawls commiserating with each other about 'dissident elements' on the committees they run. Of course they shut up during the film. Except for the snoring of one. (The brochure described the film as 'dreamlike'.)

I was back at the BFI on Halloween for Devil Doll, from 1963, that old chestnut about the extraordinarily horrible ventriloquist's dummy, and ridiculous from start to finish. 'The Great Vorelli' is a hypnotist cum ventriloquist who really draws a crowd. It's hard to see why, because when we first see his act, he's hypnotising an audience member into thinking he's about to be executed with a shot to the back of the head. After the poor man has finished whimpering, the call for further volunteers is greeted with an unsurprising lack of enthusiasm. Nevertheless, Bryant Halliday, as Vorelli, delivers a performance of such intensity that it is almost possible to believe that people would turn up just to feel the 'tension' between him and his dummy, Hugo. You see, they don't do jokes. In fact, they don't seem to be getting on very well at all. They barely speak.

The fact is, Vorelli has somehow transmigrated the soul of a former colleague into the dummy. Which begs a big question: why? But then, why does anyone do anything? I found it all strangely plausible: cinema as a form of hypnosis.

What I can't believe is that Mat is going to become a father. He has already described how he is going to supervise the baby's 'training', though not before he has taken arty photos of the grim scene of 'gore and horror' that will be the baby's birth. Congratulations, Matandamanda. The social services have been alerted.