my experiences in the toilet / watch this space

A sign upon the door of the toilet cubicle in the gents at work advised the user to 'flush two or three times'. It didn't seem to do anything. Eventually, a guy came in to repair it. Or I assume, judging from the sounds coming from in there, that this was what he was doing. Maybe there was something wrong with him. Really quite spectacularly wrong with him.

A few months ago, someone wrote 'fuck this' in really tiny very careful letters just above the urinal. It seemed an odd sort of act, as though they wanted to protest but were worried someone would notice. Perhaps that's what this place does to you.

One afternoon this week I went in the toilet purely to wash up my mug (because they took our sink away when the office was extended) and there was someone in there, pissing in the urinal. It made no sense, but I felt vaguely disgusted.

This week has offered non-stop excitement. A wasp flew in to the office and Health and Safety (usually so keen to protect us) were nowhere to be seen. Somebody advised turning off the light, and this worked almost immediately: it flew right out again.

There was also our monthly briefing, which is like a teleconference where only one person (mainly) speaks. Such things seem to be haunted by incongruous sounds on the line, and this was no exception: a clicking of snooker balls, a shrill burst of feedback, faint orgasmic sighs... At one point someone from another call altogether wandered in, said hello, then vanished. I forget his name.

I dreamed (not while I was in the office) that I was back working at Waterstone's. Someone was offering to show me how to go through 'the Mr. Men packs'. I woke up screaming. Later in the week, I bumped into an ex-colleague. She said that it was taking ages to order anything, and that there was a smell from the basement. Well they can't blame me, whatever they find. At that time, it was company policy to take uncooperative customers down there and shoot them in the head.

Wasn't it?

Perhaps I'd better leave town just in case. Or at least move. Expect not to read anything here for a while, as we will experience internet loss for the customary month or so. Dave went round to see the landlord last week and was asked the usual question about how he lost his leg, and the landlord sympathised to such an extent that he stroked, at some length, Dave's arm.

And this is the guy we're hoping will have a well-developed sense of boundaries.

hot young hogs

We went to the Hunt's annual Hog Roast, this year featuring wigs. Not that the wigs stayed on for long because the sun actually came out. So did the wasps, mind you, and, not having had much opportunity to socialise this Summer, they were over-attentive to say the least. But it all went off very well. I sat at a table with Kevin and others, reminiscing about happy days of yesteryear. Like the time Trevor was threatened with a gun outside a Maidstone nightclub. And then there was Newquay which, it was agreed, just isn't the same anymore. I was there a month or so ago and all the clubgoers looked too young to be out on their own. No wonder they're always falling off cliffs. They haven't yet worked out that the land ends.

Of course the thing you really notice attending these things every year is that people are still having children. I thought it was just a brief craze, but it seems to be more popular than ever. I suppose it's fine if you enjoy having your amusing adult conversations continually interrupted by someone urgently demanding your attention, only to then inform you of something completely banal, like the fact that that thing over there is a cow. Then they do it again. And again. I suppose there must be compensations, but is it really worth it, just to keep the human race alive? Let the rats have a go instead.

I suppose they have their little individualities. Like Ian and Kathy's son James, who is preternaturally good at kicking a football. Although he also stops to stare at the sky every time a plane flies overhead, which could dent his prospects as a professional player.

Little Samuel goggled up at me (or possibly at nothing) from his pram, agitating his limbs. Mat accused me of thinking him 'ugly'. I said he just wasn't my type. It seemed the socially correct phrase. Not that I do think him ugly, of course - but my aesthetics do not yet embrace the capacity for (in Mat's phrase) 'projectile shitting'.

Dave took an interesting photo of a chicken.

revealing trade secrets

An unexplained little man was wandering around at work with a clipboard, taking notes. The other week he was spotted going into the Ladies with a camera. We can only presume that these activities are officially-sanctioned.

Maybe they are turning the place into retirement apartments, now that they have finally got rid of our old boss, whose last day was on Friday. In search of leaving presents, we were looking through print-outs from the internet of garden statuary. She favours gargoyles rather than gnomes, most of which were sticking their tongues out, making them - you might have thought - rather unsuitable as farewell gifts.

Then again, things being what they are, she has not parted on the best of terms with the NHS, so that one of her other presents, a fake sign, twisted the NHS Blood and Transplant logo into NHS Bollocks and Trauma, which just about covers it. It took us a good ten minutes of brainstorming to come up with that one. Now that's Strategic Marketing!