'the dual Pratt & Whitney engines hummed evenly'*
Chapter One: Moving
We moved. Of course it was traumatic. In my mind, my allotted room had come to assume reasonable, if not quite luxurious, proportions. The problem with this was, as ever, reality. When I actually saw the room the Monday before we moved in I was horrified. I could almost certainly get all my stuff in here, but what about me?
After a sleepless night I had a vision. Dave would take the lounge as his room, I would have the larger bedroom, and the smaller bedroom would be a 'TV room' or 'den'. After all, it isn't as though we have a social life. He dismissed this solution as 'crazy' (in truth I did, sheepishly, present it to him as such) but after my third suicide attempt he (as he put it) 'caved in' (to my demand that he have an absolutely massive bedroom).
So there he languishes in various catalogue poses in his bedroom-cum-lounge ('cum lounge' for short), while I have the space to wallow in my own filth. The 'lounge' (or 'den' or 'games room' or 'shit room nobody wanted') is occupied, though only by sofas, which fill it entirely. Oh, well. The TV doesn't work anyway.
(Actually it does now. For a while we had a non-digital signal, and were forced to stare at a pointillist picture of Eastenders. Then Dave channelled it through his laptop and it looked like the characters were having their faces rearranged by invisible plastic surgeons as we watched - or does Daniella Westbrook really look like that? Now, through the miracle of miles of cable, we can at last watch Ghosthunting With The Happy Mondays in all its glory.**)
Chapter Two: The Dump
One side-effect of this move is that I have made my first visit (first three visits, in truth) to the dump. The dump! All human life is there, but not for very long. It is staffed by helpful minions so well-versed in the arcane business of recycling that one of them even knew to toss a box of glasses into 'non-recyclables' rather than the glass bin. Presumably he had recognised a particular kind of tough, specialist glass with his professional eye. Either that, or he just didn't give a shit.
But they were all very cheery, except for this sour older one who brusquely informed me that even bio-degradable bags weren't allowed in with the garden waste ('Says so on the sign.') The sign spoke only of 'bags', but there didn't seem much point in protesting. No doubt, when Mary Portas finally gets round to making every visit to the recycling centre a 'fabulous experience', he will be eliminated. He was a 'non-recyclable' if ever I saw one.
Chapter Three: Back To Nature
After the move was over, I had time to enjoy the time off I had in my usual way. I saw the film Afterschool (18). At the counter in front of me at the Odeon Panton Street was an American girl trying to get her 14-year old brother in. No dice. After I got my ticket, I felt like going up to him and waving it in front of his face: 'I got a ticket cos I'm an adult. Ner ner ner ner ner!' I didn't. Later, in the same cinema, I saw Antichrist, Lars Von Trier's feast of Gothic psychodrama and genital mutilation. 'The following trailers are suitable for this feature' said the screen beforehand. There followed a trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Well I knew Harry was a bit more grown up now but 'suitable' seems to be stretching it.
I also saw Magazine (the band) at the Royal Festival Hall. It's the only rock gig I've been to where I ate an ice cream in the interval - well, they are post-punk, I suppose. Esme (who always pops up at these things) said that the Roundhouse never sold so much tea as they did at the X-Ray Spex gig there a while ago. Her brother was at the RFH too in an 'I am angry I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin' T-shirt. I'd looked at them on display and thought that that was just asking for trouble, but then - I'm old.
The band were fantastic. It felt a bit odd sitting down, but in the second half everybody stood up - not, it must be said, in an act of spontaneous rebellion, but because (lead singer) Howard Devoto expressly gave us permission to do so.
Next day, at work, Jeremy Vine was reminiscing about the gig on Radio 2 and playing The Light Pours Out of Me. I was part of the Zeitgeist!
I didn't really take advantage of it.
Chapter Four: Real Life
Back to the grind. Returning to work after a bit of a break and from an unfamiliar angle you feel all discombobulated, like you've forgotten your trousers. When you put your passcode in, you feel like a voice is going to start screaming: 'Intruder! Intruder!'
None of these things happened. Apart from forgetting my trousers, but it was warm.
We were told to look out for messages from our employer on our payslips. So I did, and here is what I saw: 'We need your blood.' It occurred to me that, coming from any other employer than the National Blood Service (Waterstones, for example), this would have been rather alarming. Though perhaps not exactly surprising.
At one point I found myself dragging two enormous flattened cardboard boxes up from Reception to the office. 'Is this your new house?', asked the other Martin. In fact they were for the two Billy Blood Drop costumes that were lolling in the 'goldfish bowl' - as that particular storeroom is known, due to its being well-supplied with windows. Billy Blood Drop, in case you don't know, is the Blood Service mascot. The costumes were suffering from wear and tear and needed to be shipped off to the manufacturers for their 'spa treatment', as it is known (really). Fished from the goldfish bowl, the Billy Blood Drops proved to be quite unwieldy, and during the struggle to manoueuvre them into the boxes, several members of staff considered themselves to have been 'assaulted' by the lovable character. HR have been informed.
*A line from the new Dan Brahn.
**Ghosthunting With The Happy Mondays? It isn't as much fun as it sounds - well, how could it be? The scariest thing in it is Shaun Ryder. Seeing him in 'night vision' mode, I couldn't help but think: 'God, Nosferatu has let himself go.' Only Bez remains aloof from it all, having no doubt seen far stranger things than ghosts. But all their dicking about gets you down after a while - whatever happened to the notion of 'reliable witnesses'? As for Yvette Fielding, whereas she used to screech girlishly and run around, now she's billed as 'the mistress of the macabre' and just seems a bit tetchy.
We moved. Of course it was traumatic. In my mind, my allotted room had come to assume reasonable, if not quite luxurious, proportions. The problem with this was, as ever, reality. When I actually saw the room the Monday before we moved in I was horrified. I could almost certainly get all my stuff in here, but what about me?
After a sleepless night I had a vision. Dave would take the lounge as his room, I would have the larger bedroom, and the smaller bedroom would be a 'TV room' or 'den'. After all, it isn't as though we have a social life. He dismissed this solution as 'crazy' (in truth I did, sheepishly, present it to him as such) but after my third suicide attempt he (as he put it) 'caved in' (to my demand that he have an absolutely massive bedroom).
So there he languishes in various catalogue poses in his bedroom-cum-lounge ('cum lounge' for short), while I have the space to wallow in my own filth. The 'lounge' (or 'den' or 'games room' or 'shit room nobody wanted') is occupied, though only by sofas, which fill it entirely. Oh, well. The TV doesn't work anyway.
(Actually it does now. For a while we had a non-digital signal, and were forced to stare at a pointillist picture of Eastenders. Then Dave channelled it through his laptop and it looked like the characters were having their faces rearranged by invisible plastic surgeons as we watched - or does Daniella Westbrook really look like that? Now, through the miracle of miles of cable, we can at last watch Ghosthunting With The Happy Mondays in all its glory.**)
Chapter Two: The Dump
One side-effect of this move is that I have made my first visit (first three visits, in truth) to the dump. The dump! All human life is there, but not for very long. It is staffed by helpful minions so well-versed in the arcane business of recycling that one of them even knew to toss a box of glasses into 'non-recyclables' rather than the glass bin. Presumably he had recognised a particular kind of tough, specialist glass with his professional eye. Either that, or he just didn't give a shit.
But they were all very cheery, except for this sour older one who brusquely informed me that even bio-degradable bags weren't allowed in with the garden waste ('Says so on the sign.') The sign spoke only of 'bags', but there didn't seem much point in protesting. No doubt, when Mary Portas finally gets round to making every visit to the recycling centre a 'fabulous experience', he will be eliminated. He was a 'non-recyclable' if ever I saw one.
Chapter Three: Back To Nature
After the move was over, I had time to enjoy the time off I had in my usual way. I saw the film Afterschool (18). At the counter in front of me at the Odeon Panton Street was an American girl trying to get her 14-year old brother in. No dice. After I got my ticket, I felt like going up to him and waving it in front of his face: 'I got a ticket cos I'm an adult. Ner ner ner ner ner!' I didn't. Later, in the same cinema, I saw Antichrist, Lars Von Trier's feast of Gothic psychodrama and genital mutilation. 'The following trailers are suitable for this feature' said the screen beforehand. There followed a trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Well I knew Harry was a bit more grown up now but 'suitable' seems to be stretching it.
I also saw Magazine (the band) at the Royal Festival Hall. It's the only rock gig I've been to where I ate an ice cream in the interval - well, they are post-punk, I suppose. Esme (who always pops up at these things) said that the Roundhouse never sold so much tea as they did at the X-Ray Spex gig there a while ago. Her brother was at the RFH too in an 'I am angry I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin' T-shirt. I'd looked at them on display and thought that that was just asking for trouble, but then - I'm old.
The band were fantastic. It felt a bit odd sitting down, but in the second half everybody stood up - not, it must be said, in an act of spontaneous rebellion, but because (lead singer) Howard Devoto expressly gave us permission to do so.
Next day, at work, Jeremy Vine was reminiscing about the gig on Radio 2 and playing The Light Pours Out of Me. I was part of the Zeitgeist!
I didn't really take advantage of it.
Chapter Four: Real Life
Back to the grind. Returning to work after a bit of a break and from an unfamiliar angle you feel all discombobulated, like you've forgotten your trousers. When you put your passcode in, you feel like a voice is going to start screaming: 'Intruder! Intruder!'
None of these things happened. Apart from forgetting my trousers, but it was warm.
We were told to look out for messages from our employer on our payslips. So I did, and here is what I saw: 'We need your blood.' It occurred to me that, coming from any other employer than the National Blood Service (Waterstones, for example), this would have been rather alarming. Though perhaps not exactly surprising.
At one point I found myself dragging two enormous flattened cardboard boxes up from Reception to the office. 'Is this your new house?', asked the other Martin. In fact they were for the two Billy Blood Drop costumes that were lolling in the 'goldfish bowl' - as that particular storeroom is known, due to its being well-supplied with windows. Billy Blood Drop, in case you don't know, is the Blood Service mascot. The costumes were suffering from wear and tear and needed to be shipped off to the manufacturers for their 'spa treatment', as it is known (really). Fished from the goldfish bowl, the Billy Blood Drops proved to be quite unwieldy, and during the struggle to manoueuvre them into the boxes, several members of staff considered themselves to have been 'assaulted' by the lovable character. HR have been informed.
*A line from the new Dan Brahn.
**Ghosthunting With The Happy Mondays? It isn't as much fun as it sounds - well, how could it be? The scariest thing in it is Shaun Ryder. Seeing him in 'night vision' mode, I couldn't help but think: 'God, Nosferatu has let himself go.' Only Bez remains aloof from it all, having no doubt seen far stranger things than ghosts. But all their dicking about gets you down after a while - whatever happened to the notion of 'reliable witnesses'? As for Yvette Fielding, whereas she used to screech girlishly and run around, now she's billed as 'the mistress of the macabre' and just seems a bit tetchy.
posted by martin at 10:32 AM
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